“On February 27 one of the monkeys of our collection gave birth, in the cages at Montecito, to a male infant.  The mother is a Macacus cynomolgus rhesus (P. irus rhesus) who has been described by Hamilton (1914, p. 298) as ’Monkey 9, Gertie, M. cynomolgus rhesus (P. irus rhesus).  Age, 3 years 2 months. (She is now, May 1, 1915, 4 years and 6 months.) Daughter of monkeys 3 and 10.  First pregnancy began September, 1913.’  The result of this pregnancy was, I am informed, a still-birth.

“The second pregnancy, which shall now especially concern us, resulted likewise in a still-birth.  Parturition occurred Saturday night, and the writer first observed the behavior of the mother the following Monday morning.  In the meantime the laboratory attendant had obtained the data upon which I base the above statements.

“At the time of parturition Gertie was in a 6 by 6 by 12 foot out-door cage containing a small shelter box, with an exceptionally quiet and gentle male (not the father of the infant) who is designated in Hamilton’s paper as Monkey 28, Scotty.

“My notes record the following exceptionally interesting and genetically important behavior.  On March 1, when I approached her cage, Gertie was sitting on the floor with the infant held in one hand while she fingered its eyelids and eyes with the other.  Scotty sat close beside her watching intently.  When disturbed by me the mother carried her infant to a shelf at the top of the cage.  Repeatedly attempts were made to remove the dead baby, but they were futile because Gertie either held it in her hands or sat close beside it ready to seize it at the slightest disturbance.

“Especially noteworthy on this, the second day after the birth of the infant, are the male’s, as well as the female’s, keen interest in the body and their frequent examinations of the eyes, as if in attempts to open them.  Often, also, the mother searched the body for fleas.

“Observations were made from day to day, and each day opportunity was sought to remove the body without seriously frightening or exciting the female.  No such opportunity came, and during the second week the corpse so far decomposed that, with constant handling and licking by the adults, it rapidly wore away.  By the third week there remained only the shriveled skin covering a few fragments of bone, and the open skull from the cavity of which the brain had been removed.  This the mother never lost sight of:  even when eating she either held it in one hand or foot, or laid it beside her within easy reach.

“Gradually this remnant became still further reduced until on March 31 there existed only a strip of dry skin about four inches long with a tail-like appendage of nearly the same length.

“The male, Scotty, on this date was removed to another cage.  Gertie made a great fuss, jumping about excitedly and uttering plaintive cries when she discovered that her mate was gone.  Whenever I approached her cage she scurried into the shelter box and stayed there while I was near.  This behavior I never before had observed.  It continued for two days.  On April 2, it was noted that she had lost her recently acquired shyness and she no longer made any attempts to avoid me.  As usual, on this date, she was carrying the remnant about with her.