Gibbon's Decline & Fall

THE APES by Vernon Reynolds. 296 pages. Duffon. $10.

The primatologist's a man

Who searches where mankind began;

The Congo's matted jungle trees

Are thick with eager Ph.D.s.

And here is one more sober study

Designed to prove the ape

man's buddy--A hairy version of your brother Your sister and your uncle's mother. This Dr. Vernon Reynolds, he Can prove the noble chimpanzee Is very like to you and me; He's sorry when he's done some wrong,

Attempts to make some kind of song, Rarely does what he is told, Becomes arthritic when he's old.

Like man's, his sex life is a mess; He may aspire to faithfulness But rarely is he known to snub A lady member of the club. The trouble is, this information Is all from jungle observation. When Reynolds wants a closer view He's forced to study in a zoo, And there like men, the apes in cages Are prone to sulks and lethal rages, Turn homo and refuse to play With any girl who comes their way, Lose all desire to drink or dance, Fall in a catatonic trance.

So Dr. Reynolds urges that Man should provide a habitat For his poor hairy dumb relations, A sort of ape's United Nations. The state of Florida might serve As one great simian preserve, Where the whole tribe would perhaps thrive, Or just contrive to stay alive. And in this tax-free paradise Who knows, the ape might

learn to rise

Higher on Darwin's family tree And join in man's society. Then some gifted gibbon may Be able in his apish way To peer at Cape Canaveral And write a new Decline and Fall.

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