"I shall next describe a strange sort of animal, called
by the white men in this country Mandrill,[7] but why it
is so called I know not, nor did I ever hear the name
before, neither can those who call them so tell, except
it be for their near resemblance of a human creature,
though nothing at all like an Ape. Their bodies, when
full grown, are as big in circumference as a middle-sized
man's--their legs much shorter, and their feet larger;
their arms and hands in proportion. The head is
monstrously big, and the face broad and flat, without any
other hair but the eyebrows; the nose very small, the
mouth wide, and the lips thin. The face, which is covered
by a white skin, is monstrously ugly, being all over
wrinkled as with old age; the teeth broad and yellow; the
hands have no more hair than the face, but the same white
skin, though all the rest of the body is covered with
long black hair, like a bear. They never go upon all
fours, like apes; but cry, when vexed or teased, just
like children....
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Facsimile of William Smith's figure of the
"Mandrill," 1744.]
"When I was at Sherbro, one Mr. Cummerbus, whom I shall
have occasion hereafter to mention, made me a present of
one of these strange animals, which are called by the
natives Boggoe: it was a she-cub, of six months' age, but
even then larger than a Baboon. I gave it in charge to
one of the slaves, who knew how to feed and nurse it,
being a very tender sort of animal; but whenever I went
off the deck the sailors began to teaze it--some loved to
see its tears and hear it cry; others hated its
snotty-nose; one who hurt it, being checked by the negro
that took care of it, told the slave he was very fond of
his country-woman, and asked him if he should not like
her for a wife? To which the slave very readily replied,
'No, this no my wife; this a white woman--this fit wife
for you.' This unlucky wit of the negro's, I fancy,
hastened its death, for next morning it was found dead
under the windlass."
William Smith's "Mandrill," or "Boggoe," as his description and figure
testify, was, without doubt, a Chimpanzee.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--The Anthropomorpha of Linnæus.]
Linnæus knew nothing, of his own observation, of the man-like Apes of
either Africa or Asia, but a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the
"Amoenitates Academicæ" (VI. "Anthropomorpha") may be regarded as
embodying his views respecting these animals.
The dissertation is illustrated by a plate, of which the accompanying
woodcut, Fig. 6, is a reduced copy. The figures are entitled (from left
to right) 1. _Troglodyta Bontii_; 2. _Lucifer Aldrovandi_; 3. _Satyrus
Tulpii_; 4. _Pygmæus Edwardi_. The first is a bad copy of Bontius'
fictitious "Ourang-outang," in whose existence, however, Linnæus appears
to have fully believed; for in the standard edition of the "Systema
Naturæ," it is enumerated as a second species of Homo; "H. nocturnus."
_Lucifer Aldrovandi_ is a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus, "De
Quadrupedibus digitatis viviparis," Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645), entitled
"Cercopithecus formæ raræ _Barbilius_ vocatus et originem a china
ducebat." Hoppius is of opinion that this may be one of that cat-tailed
people, of whom Nicolaus Köping affirms that they eat a boat's crew,
"gubernator navis" and all! In the "Systema Naturæ" Linnæus calls it in
a note, _Homo caudatus_, and seems inclined to regard it as a third
species of man. According to Temminck, _Satyrus Tulpii_ is a copy of the
figure of a Chimpanzee published by Scotin in 1738, which I have not
seen. It is the _Satyrus indicus_ of the "Systema Naturæ," and is
regarded by Linnæus as possibly a distinct species from _Satyrus
sylvestris_. The last, named _Pygmæus Edwardi_, is copied from the
figure of a young "Man of the Woods," or true Orang-Utan, given in
Edwards "Gleanings of Natural History" (1758).
Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. Not only had he the rare
opportunity of examining a young Chimpanzee in the living state, but he
became possessed of an adult Asiatic man-like Ape--the first and the
last adult specimen of any of these animals brought to Europe for many
years. With the valuable assistance of Daubenton, Buffon gave an
excellent description of this creature, which, from its singular
proportions, he termed the long-armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern
_Hylobates lar_.
Thus when, in 1766, Buffon wrote the fourteenth volume of his great
work, he was personally familiar with the young of one kind of African
man-like Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic species--while the
Orang-Utan and the Mandrill of Smith were known to him by report.
Furthermore, the Abbé Prevost had translated a good deal of Purchas'
Pilgrims into French, in his "Histoire générale des Voyages" (1748), and
there Buffon found a version of Andrew Battell's account of the Pongo
and the Engeco. All these data Buffon attempts to weld together into
harmony in his chapter entitled "Les Orang-outangs ou le Pongo et le
Jocko." To this title the following note is appended:--
"Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales:
Pongo nom de cet animal à Lowando Province de Congo.
"Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal à Congo que nous avons
adopté. _En_ est l'article que nous avons retranché."
Thus it was that Andrew Battell's "Engeco" became metamorphosed into
"Jocko," and, in the latter shape, was spread all over the world, in
consequence of the extensive popularity of Buffon's works. The Abbé
Prevost and Buffon between them, however, did a good deal more
disfigurement to Battell's sober account than "cutting off an article."
Thus Battell's statement that the Pongos "cannot speake, and have no
understanding more than a beast," is rendered by Buffon "qu'il ne peut
parler _quoiqu'il ait plus d'entendement que les autres animaux_"; and
again, Purchas' affirmation, "He told me in conference with him, that
one of these Pongos tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with
them," stands in the French version, "un pongo lui enleva un petit negre
qui passa un _an_ entier dans la societé de ces animaux."
After quoting the account of the great Pongo, Buffon justly remarks,
that all the "Jockos" and "Orangs" hitherto brought to Europe were
young; and he suggests that, in their adult condition, they might be as
big as the Pongo or "great Orang"; so that, provisionally, he regarded
the Jockos, Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species. And perhaps this
was as much as the state of knowledge at the time warranted. But how it
came about that Buffon failed to perceive the similarity of Smith's
"Mandrill" to his own "Jocko," and confounded the former with so totally
different a creature as the blue-faced Baboon, is not so easily
intelligible.
Twenty years later Buffon changed his opinion,[8] and expressed his
belief that the Orangs constituted a genus with two species,--a large
one, the Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko: that the small
one (Jocko) is the East Indian Orang; and that the young animals from
Africa, observed by himself and Tulpius, are simply young Pongos.
In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vosmaer, gave, in 1778, a very
good account and figure of a young Orang, brought alive to Holland, and
his countryman, the famous anatomist, Peter Camper, published (1779) an
essay on the Orang-Utan of similar value to that of Tyson on the
Chimpanzee. He dissected several females and a male, all of which, from
the state of their skeleton and their dentition, he justly supposes to
have been young. However, judging by the analogy of man, he concludes
that they could not have exceeded four feet in height in the adult
condition. Furthermore, he is very clear as to the specific distinctness
of the true East Indian Orang.
"The Orang," says he, "differs not only from the Pigmy of Tyson and from
the Orang of Tulpius by its peculiar colour and its long toes, but also
by its whole external form. Its arms, its hands, and its feet are
longer, while the thumbs, on the contrary, are much shorter, and the
great toes much smaller in proportion."[9] And again, "The true Orang,
that is to say, that of Asia, that of Borneo, is consequently not the
Pithecus, or tail-less Ape, which the Greeks, and especially Galen, have
described. It is neither the Pongo nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of
Tulpius, nor the Pigmy of Tyson,--_it is an animal of a peculiar
species_, as I shall prove in the clearest manner by the organs of voice
and the skeleton in the following chapters" (l. c. p. 64).
A few years later, M. Radermacher, who held a high office in the
Government of the Dutch dominions in India, and was an active member of
the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, published, in the second part
of the Transactions of that Society,[10] a Description of the Island of
Borneo, which was written between the years 1779 and 1781, and, among
much other interesting matter, contains some notes upon the Orang. The
small sort of Orang-Utan, viz. that of Vosmaer and of Edwards, he says,
is found only in Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing, Mampauwa, and
Landak. Of these he had seen some fifty during his residence in the
Indies; but none exceeded 2-1/2 feet in length. The larger sort, often
regarded as chimæra, continues Radermacher, would, perhaps long have
remained so, had it not been for the exertions of the Resident at
Rembang, M. Palm, who, on returning from Landak towards Pontiana, shot
one, and forwarded it to Batavia in spirit, for transmission to Europe.
Palm's letter describing the capture runs thus:--"Herewith I send your
Excellency, contrary to all expectation (since long ago I offered more
than a hundred ducats to the natives for an Orang-Utan of four or five
feet high) an Orang which I heard of this morning about eight o'clock.
For a long time we did our best to take the frightful beast alive in the
dense forest about half way to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so anxious
were we not to let him escape; but it was necessary to take care he did
not revenge himself, as he kept continually breaking off heavy pieces of
wood and green branches, and dashing them at us. This game lasted till
four o'clock in the afternoon, when we determined to shoot him; in which
I succeeded very well, and indeed better than I ever shot from a boat
before; for the bullet went just into the side of his chest, so that he
was not much damaged. We got him into the prow still living, and bound
him fast, and next morning he died of his wounds. All Pontiana came on
board to see him when we arrived." Palm gives his height from the head
to the heel as 49 inches.
A very intelligent German officer, Baron Von Wurmb, who at this time
held a post in the Dutch East India service, and was Secretary of the
Batavian Society, studied this animal, and his careful description of
it, entitled "Beschrijving van der Groote Borneosche Orang-outang of de
Oost-Indische Pongo," is contained in the same volume of the Batavian
Society's Transactions. After Von Wurmb had drawn up his description he
states, in a letter dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781,[11] that the specimen
was sent to Europe in brandy to be placed in the collection of the
Prince of Orange; "unfortunately," he continues, "we hear that the ship
has been wrecked." Von Wurmb died in the course of the year 1781, the
letter in which this passage occurs being the last he wrote; but in his
posthumous papers, published in the fourth part of the Transactions of
the Batavian Society, there is a brief description, with measurements,
of a female Pongo four feet high.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to
Camper, after Camper's original sketches, as reproduced by Lucæ.]
Did either of these original specimens, on which Von Wurmb's
descriptions are based, ever reach Europe? It is commonly supposed that
they did; but I doubt the fact. For, appended to the memoir "De
l'Ourang-outang," in the collected edition of Camper's works, tome i.,
pp. 64-66, is a note by Camper himself, referring to Von Wurmb's papers,
and continuing thus:--"Heretofore, this kind of ape had never been known
in Europe. Radermacher has had the kindness to send me the skull of one
of these animals, which measured fifty-three inches, or four feet five
inches, in height. I have sent some sketches of it to M. Soemmering at
Mayence, which are better calculated, however, to give an idea of the
form than of the real size of the parts."
These sketches have been reproduced by Fischer and by Lucæ, and bear
date 1783, Soemmering having received them in 1784. Had either of Von
Wurmb's specimens reached Holland, they would hardly have been unknown
at this time to Camper, who, however, goes on to say:--"It appears that
since this, some more of these monsters have been captured, for an
entire skeleton, very badly set up, which had been sent to the Museum
of the Prince of Orange, and which I saw only on the 27th of June, 1784,
was more than four feet high. I examined this skeleton again on the 19th
December, 1785, after it had been excellently put to rights by the
ingenious Onymus."
It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, which is doubtless that
which has always gone by the name of Wurmb's Pongo, is not that of the
animal described by him, though unquestionably similar in all essential
points.
Camper proceeds to note some of the most important features of this
skeleton; promises to describe it in detail by-and-bye; and is evidently
in doubt as to the relation of this great "Pongo" to his "petit Orang."
The promised further investigations were never carried out; and so it
happened that the Pongo of Von Wurmb took its place by the side of the
Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and colossal species of
man-like Ape. And indeed nothing could look much less like the
Chimpanzees or the Orangs, then known, than the Pongo; for all the
specimens of Chimpanzee and Orang which had been observed were small of
stature, singularly human in aspect, gentle and docile; while Wurmb's
Pongo was a monster almost twice their size, of vast strength and
fierceness, and very brutal in expression; its great projecting muzzle,
armed with strong teeth, being further disfigured by the outgrowth of
the cheeks into fleshy lobes.
Eventually, in accordance with the usual marauding habits of the
Revolutionary armies, the "Pongo" skeleton was carried away from Holland
into France, and notices of it, expressly intended to demonstrate its
entire distinctness from the Orang and its affinity with the baboons,
were given, in 1798, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier.
Even in Cuvier's "Tableau Elementaire," and in the first edition of his
great work, the "Regne Animal," the "Pongo" is classed as a species of
Baboon. However, so early as 1818, it appears that Cuvier saw reason to
alter this opinion, and to adopt the view suggested several years
before by Blumenbach,[12] and after him by Tilesius, that the Bornean
Pongo is simply an adult Orang. In 1824, Rudolphi demonstrated, by the
condition of the dentition, more fully and completely than had been done
by his predecessors, that the Orangs described up to that time were all
young animals, and that the skull and teeth of the adult would probably
be such as those seen in the Pongo of Wurmb. In the second edition of
the "Regne Animal" (1829), Cuvier infers, from the "proportions of all
the parts" and "the arrangements of the foramina and sutures of the
head," that the Pongo is the adult of the Orang-Utan, "at least of a
very closely allied species," and this conclusion was eventually placed
beyond all doubt by Professor Owen's Memoir published in the "Zoological
Transactions" for 1835, and by Temminck in his "Monographies de
Mammalogie." Temminck's memoir is remarkable for the completeness of the
evidence which it affords as to the modification which the form of the
Orang undergoes according to age and sex. Tiedemann first published an
account of the brain of the young Orang, while Sandifort, Müller and
Schlegel, described the muscles and the viscera of the adult, and gave
the earliest detailed and trustworthy history of the habits of the great
Indian Ape in a state of nature; and as important additions have been
made by later observers, we are at this moment better acquainted with
the adult of the Orang-Utan, than with that of any of the other greater
man-like Apes.
It is certainly the Pongo of Wurmb;[13] and it is as certainly not the
Pongo of Battell, seeing that the Orang-Utan is entirely confined to the
great Asiatic islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
And while the progress of discovery thus cleared up the history of the
Orang, it also became established that the only other man-like Apes in
the eastern world were the various species of Gibbon--Apes of smaller
stature, and therefore attracting less attention than the Orangs,
though they are spread over a much wider range of country, and are hence
more accessible to observation.
* * * * *
Although the geographical area inhabited by the "Pongo" and "Engeco" of
Battell is so much nearer to Europe than that in which the Orang and
Gibbon are found, our acquaintance with the African Apes has been of
slower growth; indeed, it is only within the last few years that the
truthful story of the old English adventurer has been rendered fully
intelligible. It was not until 1835 that the skeleton of the adult
Chimpanzee became known, by the publication of Professor Owen's
above-mentioned very excellent memoir "On the osteology of the
Chimpanzee and Orang," in the Zoological Transactions--a memoir which,
by the accuracy of its descriptions, the carefulness of its comparisons,
and the excellence of its figures, made an epoch in the history of our
knowledge of the bony framework, not only of the Chimpanzee, but of all
the anthropoid Apes.
By the investigations herein detailed, it became evident that the old
Chimpanzee acquired a size and aspect as different from those of the
young known to Tyson, to Buffon, and to Traill, as those of the old
Orang from the young Orang; and the subsequent very important researches
of Messrs. Savage and Wyman, the American missionary and anatomist, have
not only confirmed this conclusion, but have added many new details.[14]
One of the most interesting among the many valuable discoveries made by
Dr. Thomas Savage is the fact, that the natives in the Gaboon country at
the present day, apply to the Chimpanzee a name--"Enché-eko"--which is
obviously identical with the "Engeko" of Battell; a discovery which has
been confirmed by all later inquirers. Battell's "lesser monster," being
thus proved to be a veritable existence, of course a strong presumption
arose that his "greater monster," the "Pongo," would sooner or later be
discovered. And, indeed, a modern traveller, Bowdich, had, in 1819,
found strong evidence, among the natives, of the existence of a second
great Ape, called the "Ingena," "five feet high, and four across the
shoulders," the builder of a rude house, on the outside of which it
slept.
In 1847, Dr. Savage had the good fortune to make another and most
important addition to our knowledge of the man-like Apes; for, being
unexpectedly detained at the Gaboon river, he saw in the house of the
Rev. Mr. Wilson, a missionary resident there, "a skull represented by
the natives to be a monkey-like animal, remarkable for its size,
ferocity, and habits." From the contour of the skull, and the
information derived from several intelligent natives, "I was induced,"
says Dr. Savage (using the term Orang in its old general sense), "to
believe that it belonged to a new species of Orang. I expressed this
opinion to Mr. Wilson, with a desire for further investigation; and, if
possible, to decide the point by the inspection of a specimen alive or
dead." The result of the combined exertions of Messrs. Savage and Wilson
was not only the obtaining of a very full account of the habits of this
new creature, but a still more important service to science, the
enabling the excellent American anatomist already mentioned, Professor
Wyman, to describe, from ample materials, the distinctive osteological
characters of the new form. This animal was called by the natives of the
Gaboon "Engé-ena," a name obviously identical with the "Ingena" of
Bowdich; and Dr. Savage arrived at the conviction that this last
discovered of all the great Apes was the long-sought "Pongo" of Battell.
The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond doubt--for not only
does the "Engé-ena" agree with Battell's "greater monster" in its hollow
eyes, its great stature and its dun or iron-grey colour, but the only
other man-like Ape which inhabits these latitudes--the Chimpanzee--is at
once identified, by its smaller size, as the "lesser monster," and is
excluded from any possibility of being the "Pongo," by the fact that it
is black and not dun, to say nothing of the important circumstance
already mentioned that it still retains the name of "Engeko," or
"Enché-eko," by which Battell knew it.
In seeking for a specific name for the "Engé-ena," however, Dr. Savage
wisely avoided the much misused "Pongo"; but finding in the ancient
Periplus of Hanno the word "Gorilla" applied to certain hairy savage
people, discovered by the Carthaginian voyager in an island on the
African coast, he attached the specific name "_Gorilla_" to his new ape,
whence arises its present well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more
cautious than some of his successors, by no means identifies his ape
with Hanno's "wild men." He merely says that the latter were "probably
one of the species of the Orang;" and I quite agree with M. Brullé that
there is no ground for identifying the modern "Gorilla" with that of the
Carthaginian admiral.
Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was published, the skeleton of the
Gorilla has been investigated by Professor Owen and by the late
Professor Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Plantes, the latter having further
supplied a valuable account of the muscular system and of many of the
other soft parts; while African missionaries and travellers have
confirmed and expanded the account originally given of the habits of
this great man-like Ape, which has had the singular fortune of being the
first to be made known to the general world and the last to be
scientifically investigated.
Two centuries and a half have passed away since Battell told his stories
about the "greater" and the "lesser monsters" to Purchas, and it has
taken nearly that time to arrive at the clear result that there are four
distinct kinds of Anthropoids--in Eastern Asia, the Gibbons and the
Orangs; in Western Africa, the Chimpanzees and the Gorilla.
* * * * *
The man-like Apes, the history of whose discovery has just been
detailed, have certain characters of structure and of distribution in
common. Thus they all have the same number of teeth as man--possessing
four incisors, two canines, four false molars, and six true molars in
each jaw, or 32 teeth in all, in the adult condition; while the milk
dentition consists of 20 teeth--or four incisors, two canines, and four
molars in each jaw. They are what are called catarrhine Apes--that is,
their nostrils have a narrow partition and look downwards; and,
furthermore, their arms are always longer than their legs, the
difference being sometimes greater and sometimes less; so that if the
four were arranged in the order of the length of their arms in
proportion to that of their legs, we should have this series--Orang
(1-4/9--1), Gibbon (1-1/4--1), Gorilla (1-1/5--1), Chimpanzee
(1-1/16--1). In all, the fore-limbs are terminated by hands, provided
with longer or shorter thumbs; while the great toe of the foot, always
smaller than in Man, is far more moveable than in him and can be
opposed, like a thumb, to the rest of the foot. None of these apes have
tails, and none of them possess the cheek-pouches common among monkeys.
Finally, they are all inhabitants of the old world.
The Gibbons are the smallest, slenderest, and longest-limbed of the
man-like Apes: their arms are longer in proportion to their bodies than
those of any of the other man-like Apes, so that they can touch the
ground when erect; their hands are longer than their feet, and they are
the only Anthropoids which possess callosities like the lower monkeys.
They are variously coloured. The Orangs have arms which reach to the
ankles in the erect position of the animal; their thumbs and great toes
are very short, and their feet are longer than their hands. They are
covered with reddish-brown hair, and the sides of the face, in adult
males, are commonly produced into two crescentic, flexible excrescences,
like fatty tumours. The Chimpanzees have arms which reach below the
knees; they have large thumbs and great toes, their hands are longer
than their feet, and their hair is black, while the skin of the face is
pale. The Gorilla, lastly, has arms which reach to the middle of the
leg, large thumbs and great toes, feet longer than the hands, a black
face, and dark-grey or dun hair.
For the purpose which I have at present in view, it is unnecessary that
I should enter into any further minutiæ respecting the distinctive
characters of the genera and species into which these man-like Apes are
divided by naturalists. Suffice it to say, that the Orangs and the
Gibbons constitute the distinct genera, _Simia_ and _Hylobates_; while
the Chimpanzees and Gorillas are by some regarded simply as distinct
species of one genus, _Troglodytes_; by others as distinct
genera--_Troglodytes_ being reserved for the Chimpanzees, and _Gorilla_
for the Engé-ena or Pongo.
* * * * *
Sound knowledge respecting the habits and mode of life of the man-like
Apes has been even more difficult of attainment than correct information
regarding their structure.
Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found physically, mentally, and
morally qualified to wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of
America and of Asia; to form magnificent collections as he wanders; and
withal to think out sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his
collections: but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense
forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which constitute the favourite
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 endeavouring 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 main land 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 results 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, towards evening,
they descend in small troops to the open ground, no sooner do they spy a
man than they dart up the hill-sides, 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 g[=o]ek, g[=o]ek, g[=o]ek, g[=o]ek, goek ha ha ha ha
haa[=a][=a][=a], and may easily be 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[15] 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 zoologist,
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.
There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon readily take to
the erect posture. Mr. George Bennett,[16] 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, whilst
pursued, he has no opportunity of escaping by climbing.... When he walks
in the erect posture he turns the leg and foot outwards, 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, or in an
open field, balance themselves very prettily, by raising
their hands over their head and slightly bending the arm
at the wrist and elbow, and then run tolerably fast,
rocking from side to side; and, if urged to greater
speed, they let fall their hands to the ground, and
assist themselves forward, rather jumping than running,
still keeping the body, however, nearly erect."