General Characteristics of the Species—[THE SIAMANG]—Its Habits and Anatomy—Distinctness from the Orangs and Gibbons—Special Peculiarities—[THE WHITE-HANDED GIBBON]—Where Found—Its Cry—Its Habits—Special Anatomical Features—[THE HOOLOOK]—Where Found—A Young One in Captivity—Shape of the Skull—[THE WOOYEN APE]—Its Appearance and Habits—[THE WOW-WOW]—Very little known about it—[THE AGILE GIBBON]—Reason of the Name—Peculiarities of the Anatomy—General Comparison of the Different Varieties of the Great Apes
THE Orang-utan is not the only man-shaped Ape of the forests and jungles of the great Asiatic Islands, for there are several others to be found there, and which also live on the main land, from Malacca far away to the north in Assam; southwards, in the peninsula of Hindostan, and in South China.
They are less human-looking than the red Orangs, and they are smaller and more slender, but when they walk for a short distance erect, with the arms above the head balancing the body, their resemblance to a small and hairy “lord of creation” is considerable. A very slight glance distinguishes them from the Orangs; they have straight backs, small beads, large eyes, rather prominent chins, very long fore-arms, and their fingers reach the ankle in some, and the ground in others. Moreover, the Orangs sit upon a surface of hair, and these are furnished with a hard pad-like seat which is bare, and is called a callosity, but they have no tail. They can run.
These long-armed Apes have a number of names, but as a whole they are called Gibbons; and as their outside and inside differences and distinctions from the Orangs are considerable and more than those of the kinds of Orangs between themselves, they are grouped into a separate genus. The Orangs form, as has been stated before, the genus Simia, and these Gibbons constitute the genus Hylobates, a term taken from the Greek ὑλοβάτης, a walker in the woods.
So far as their intelligence, amiability, and teachableness are concerned, they are equal to the Orangs, and indeed they seem to adapt themselves to the methods of men more readily. Not only do they become very fond of their keepers, but they recollect them after the lapse of time; and they are constantly let loose by those who keep them in India to wander about the trees in the neighbourhood, and they will return to be cared for, and come, when called, to be fed.
Interesting to those who study the intelligence of animals, they are equally so to the common observer, who delights in witnessing their surpassing agility, wonderful leaps, and graceful swings from bough to bough. But to the anatomist they present many complicated problems for although evidently not so high in the animal scale as the Orangs and Chimpanzees, they have some things about them which cause them to resemble man more than do these great Apes, and others which cause them to resemble the large army of Monkeys. They are the last of the man-shaped in the classification, and the usual plan is to place them after the Orangs.
They are extremely delicate animals, although their fur is thick, and, in some kinds, long. They require a considerable temperature and very pure air; hence, although many have been brought to Europe, and exhibited to the delight of thousands, they do not live long, dying usually from consumption or from some lung disease. In the British Museum there are several groups of stuffed specimens of them, and also many skulls and skeletons, and a cursory examination of the first will prove that it is very difficult to distinguish one kind from another, for in the same kind, or species, there is a great variety of colour, and a different individuality in the two sexes and young. It has happened that the same kind has been called by several names by different observers, and it is only when the skeleton has been examined with the stuffed specimen that a satisfactory distinction between the species or kinds has been made.
Evidently, the whole of these long-armed Apes, with small heads and callosities on the seat, are separable into two divisions. In one the animals are larger than the others, and have a very singular adaptation of the foot for rapid movement amongst the boughs, and they have air-pouches; and in the second the animals are smaller, and have the toes free, and have no pouches. So the genus Hylobates is divided into two divisions: 1. The Siamangs. 2. The True Gibbons.
THE SIAMANG.[19]
Sir Stamford Raffles brought the Siamang prominently before the scientific world, and noticed the curious manner in which some of the toes were united, and he considered that this was to enable them to swing rapidly from branch to branch during their ordinary movements in the forest, when any stretching out of the fingers might be dangerous and produce a fall. But in this, as in many others, we owe to Mr. Wallace thanks for a concise description of the habits of the creature, which, from having its toes partly joined, has been named, Syndactylus, from the Greek words σὺν and δάκτυλος, which mean “together” and “finger.”