ORANG-UTAN’S TRICKS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2407, 21 March 1922, Page 4

ORANG-UTAN’S TRICKS.

KEEPS ZOO ATTENDANTS BUSY. What to do\about Gabong is the latest problem to be wrestled with at the New York Zoological Park. Gabong, which happens to be Malay word for canoe, is also the name of an orang-utan, who is puzzling the park scientists by an uncanny grasp of mechanics which he has been putting to destructive purposes. Gabong has the principle of the lever to his finger tips. ‘He'first demonstrated it by picking up a-screwdriver which one of the carpenters had left in his cage and starting to pry up the planking. Finding pleasure in that, he it up one day by picking up an iron bar and using it to demolish the partition between his own cage and that of the hamadryad baboon, fiercest of the monkeys, and an enemy of his own species. He was so far successful as to lift the sheet iron

and rip away two planks, but the baboon, looking through the open space, saw the iron bar and made no advances. Two keepers came along just in time to take the baboon out.

Recently he has shown even even greater cunning. There is, a trapeze in his cage, which hangs by heavy chains, such as are used on elephants, fastened to bolts to the ceiling. Friday he wrenched loose an iron bar attached to the heating pipe, and used the bar to pry apart the grating over his skylight. That tool was taken away from him before he broke through the skylight, but he devised another. He found that he could climb the chains, pull the trapeze bar up after him, and use that instead. He was caught at it recently. He is certain to try the trick again and it would be a simple matter for him to force through the grating and smash the skylight. If he gets out, it is equally certain that he will turn on all the water taps he can lay hands on, for he tried that form of amusement before. He particularly enjoys putting his thumb over the faucet and squirting the water. Curator Ditmars thinks the pro-, Idem may be solved by doing away with the trapeze chains, replacing them with swing bars, suspended from the ceiling.

None of these tricks lias been taught Gabong, but lie , has been teaching them to Dempsey, the orang-utan in the adjoining cage. He has also been showing Dempsey his little game of picking up a handful of straw, rolling it into a ball, and pelting it at visitors.

Mr Ditmars says that other orangs have shown aptitude for learning how to make use of things, .but be has never seen one with mechanical cleverness in anything like the same degree. Gabong is not at all a vicious animal. He will put his arm around your neck as trustingly as a child. But he is possessed of an imp.