Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1884 — A Monkey’s Fear of Firearms. [ARTICLE]

A Monkey’s Fear of Firearms.

He was greatly frightened at a gun that I shot off one day at some sparrows. He hid at once in the straw of his cage, and never left it till the gun was hung up again. After that I had only to touch the stock to make him hide again, when nothing could be seen in the straw except a pair of sharp eyes watching all my motions. Just a touch of my finger or of a cane upon the cock of the gun was enough to deprive him of all quiet. I used to carry on my watch chain a little pistol, on which a percussion cap would make a tolerably loud report. The monkey had not yet found this out, and, sitting on my knees, would amuse itself with licking the silver barrel. One day, in his presence, I put a percussion cap on the nipple of the pistol. The monkey observed my movements with great attention, but without seeming disturbed by them. But when the cock, being raised, made two clicks, Molly dropped his eyebrows, while he continued sitting quietly. When the explosion took place his. fright was unbounded. Crying loudly, and full of anguish, he fled from my knees, ran across several rooms, leaped out of the window, clung to a water-pipe, slid down to the street and hid himself in a ditch in a neighboring garden. His nervousness lasted a long while, and I had to take off my ■watch chain to appease him. From that day he was in such fear of the little pistol that .to take hold of the chain was enough to make him disappear in the straw. But he very soon learned by experience that the source of the detonation was not in the chain, but in the pistol, and could easily distinguish it from the other-appendages of the chain, of which he was not afraid at all. TJie closer my fingers approached the' formidable the 'greater became his anxiety, and with his eyes riveted upon the instrument, and with, tensq ears, he would dance continuously in the cage, all ready to go under the straw. He would assure himself beforehand, for greater seourity, that the cage door was well shut; and one day, when the bolt had npt been pushed in, he leaped out from the cage, which did not seem safe enough for him, and went and hid himself under the bed in the next room. As I gradually removed my hand from the pistol, I would receive chuckles of approbation; and, with his lips pushed forward and the muscles of his ear moving by jerks, he would manifest a very great joy.— Popular Science Monthly.