Apes and Monkeys: Their Life and Language

by R. L. Garner

I believe that in the future it will be shown that there are two types of gorilla as distinct from each other as the two chimpanzees are. This second variety of gorilla will be found between the third and fifth parallels south and east of the delta district, but west of the Congo. I believe it was represented in the ape Mafuka.

My researches among the apes have been confined chiefly to the two kinds heretofore described, but I have seen and studied in a superficial way the orang and the gibbon. I am not prepared as yet to discuss the habits of those two apes, but, as they form a part of the group of anthropoids, we cannot dismiss them without honorable mention.

The orang-outang, as he is commonly called, is known to zoölogy by the first of these terms alone. He is a native of Borneo and Sumatra, and opinions differ as to whether there are two species or only one.

The general plan of the skeleton of the orang is very much the same as that of the other apes. The chief points of difference are that it has one bone more in the wrist and one joint less in the spinal column than is found in man. He has thirteen pairs of ribs, which appear to be more constant in their number than in man. His arms are longer, and his legs shorter, in proportion to his body than the other two apes. The type of the skull is peculiar and combines to a certain extent more human-like form in one part with a more beast-like form in another. The usual height of an adult male is about fifty-one inches.

I have never had an opportunity of studying this ape in a wild state and have had access to only a few of them in captivity. All of these were young, and most of them were inferior specimens. He is the most stupid and obtuse of the four great apes. Except for his skeleton alone, he would be assigned a place below the gibbon, for in point of speech and mental caliber he is far inferior. Perhaps the best authorities upon the habits of this ape in a wild state are Messrs. W. T. Hornaday and Alfred R. Wallace.

Young Orangs (From a Photograph.)

The smallest and last in order of the anthropoid apes is the gibbon. He is much smaller in size, greater in variety, and more active than any other of the group. His habitat is in the southeast of Asia; its outline is vaguely defined, but it includes the Malay Peninsula and many of the contiguous islands east and south of it.

In model and texture the skeleton of the gibbon is the most delicate and graceful of all the apes, and in this respect is superior to that of man. He is the only one of the four apes that can walk in an erect position. In doing this the gibbon is awkward and often uses his arms to balance himself. Sometimes he touches his hands to the ground. At other times he raises them above his head or extends them on either side. The length of them is such that he can touch the fingers to the ground while the body is nearly or quite erect. In the spinal column he has two, and sometimes three, sections more than man. His digits are very much longer, but his legs are nearly the same length, in proportion to his body, as those of man. He has fourteen pairs of ribs.

The gibbon is the most active and probably the most intelligent of all apes. He is more arboreal in habit than any other. Many stories are told of his agility in climbing, and leaping from limb to limb. One authentic report credits one of these apes with leaping a distance of forty-two feet, from the limb of one tree to that of another. Perhaps a better term is to call it swinging, rather than leaping, as these flights are performed chiefly by the arms. Another account is that a gibbon swinging by one hand propelled himself a horizontal distance of eighteen feet through the air, seized a bird in flight, and alighted safely upon another limb, with his prey in hand.