A Book of Natural History | Page 8

his
collections; but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense forests
of equatorial Asia and Africa, which constitute the favorite habitation
of the Orang, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present difficulties of
no ordinary magnitude; and the man who risks his life by even a short
visit to the malarious shores of those regions may well be excused if he
shrinks from facing the dangers of the interior; if he contents himself
with stimulating the industry of the better-seasoned natives, and
collecting and collating the more or less mythical reports and traditions
with which they are too ready to supply him.
In such a manner most of the earlier accounts of the habits of the
man-like Apes originated; and even now a good deal of what passes
current must be admitted to have no very safe foundation. The best
information we possess is that based almost wholly on direct European
testimony respecting the Gibbons; the next best evidence relates to the
Orangs; while our knowledge of the habits of the Chimpanzee and the
Gorilla stands much in need of support and enlargement by additional
testimony from instructed European eye-witnesses.
It will therefore be convenient in endeavoring to form a notion of what
we are justified in believing about these animals, to commence with the
best known man-like Apes, the Gibbons, and Orangs; and to make use

of the perfectly reliable information respecting them as a sort of
criterion of the probable truth or falsehood of assertions respecting the
others.
Of the Gibbons, half a dozen species are found scattered over the
Asiatic Islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and through Malacca, Siam,
Arracan, and an uncertain extent of Hindostan on the mainland of Asia.
The largest attain a few inches above three feet in height, from the
crown to the heel, so that they are shorter than the other man-like Apes,
while the slenderness of their bodies renders their mass far smaller in
proportion even to this diminished height.
Dr. Salomon Müller, an accomplished Dutch naturalist, who lived for
many years in the Eastern Archipelago, and to the result of whose
personal experience I shall frequently have occasion to refer, states that
the Gibbons are true mountaineers, loving the slopes and edges of the
hills, though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of the fig-trees. All
day long they haunt the tops of the tall trees, and though toward
evening, they descend in small troops to the open ground, no sooner do
they spy a man than they dart up the hillsides and disappear in the
darker valleys.
All observers testify to the prodigious volume of voice possessed by
these animals. According to the writer whom I have just cited, in one of
them, the Siamang, "the voice is grave and penetrating, resembling the
sounds goek, goek, goek, goek, goek ha ha ha ha haaaaa, and may be
easily heard at a distance of half a league." While the cry is being
uttered, the great membranous bag under the throat which
communicates with the organ of voice, the so-called "laryngeal sac,"
becomes greatly distended, diminishing again when the creature
relapses into silence.
M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of the Siamang may be
heard for miles--making the woods ring again. So Mr. Martin describes
the cry of the agile Gibbon as "overpowering and deafening" in a room,
and "from its strength, well calculated for resounding through the vast
forests." Mr. Waterhouse, an accomplished musician as well as
zoölogist, says, "The Gibbon's voice is certainly much more powerful

than that of any singer I ever heard." And yet it is to be recollected that
this animal is not half the height of, and far less bulky in proportion
than, a man.
[Illustration: A GIBBON.]
There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon readily take to
the erect posture. Mr. George Bennett, a very excellent observer, in
describing the habits of a male Hylobates syndactylus which remained
for some time in his possession, says: "He invariably walks in the erect
posture when on a level surface; and then the arms either hang down,
enabling him to assist himself with his knuckles; or, what is more usual,
he keeps his arms uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands
pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb up on the approach of danger
or on the obtrusion of strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect
posture, but with a waddling gait, and is soon run down if, while
pursued, he has no opportunity of escaping by climbing.... When he
walks in the erect posture, he turns the leg and foot outward, which
occasions him to have a waddling gait and to seem bow-legged."
Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the Horlack or Hooluk:
"They walk erect; and when placed on the floor,