OCR Text |
Show 30 themselves from one branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round. it, making a revolution with !.'uch rapidity as almost to deem ve the eye, and continue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the impetus given by the rapidity and distance of her swinging leaps would seem to require a gradual abatement of her movements. In the very midst of her flight a branch is seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic, quietly seated on it, grasping it with her feet. As suddenly she again throws herself into action. "The following facts will convey some notion of her dexterity and quickness. A live bird was let loose in her apartment j she marked its flight, made a long swing to a distant branch, caught the bird with one hand in her passage, and attained the branch with her other hand j her aim, both at the bird and at the branch, being as succes ful as if one object only had engaged her attention. It may be added that she instantly bit off the head of the birtl, picked its feathers, and then threw it down without attempting to eat it. "On another occasion this animal swung her elf from a perch, across a passage at lea t twelve feet wide, again t a window which it was thought would be immediately broken: but not so j to the surprise of all, she caught the narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again to the cage she had left-a feat requiring not only great strength, but the nicest precision." The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, but there is very good evidence that they will bite severely when irritated- a female Hylobates agilis having so severely lacerated one man with her long canines, that he died; while she had 31 injured others so much that, by way of precaution, these formidable teeth had been filed down; but, if threatened, she would still turn on her keeper. The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to avoid animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their fingers in the liquid and t~en licking them. It is asserted that they sleep in a sitting posture. Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females carry their young to the waterside and there wash their faces, in spite of resistance and cries. They are gentle and affectionate in captivity- full of tricks and pettishness, like spoiled children, and yet not devoid of a certain conscience, as an anecdote, told by Mr. Bennett (1. c. p. 156), will show. It would appear that his Gibbon had a peculiar inclination for disarranging things in the cabin. Among these articles, a piece of soap would especially attract his notice, and for the removal of this he had been once or twice scolded. " One morning," says Mr. Bennett, "I was writing, the ape being present in the cabin, when casting my eyes towards him, I saw the little fellow taking the soap. I watched him without his perceiving that I did so : and he occasionally would cast a furtive glance towards the place where I sat. I pretended to write j he, seeing me busily occupied, took the soap, and moved away with it in his paw. When he had walked half the length of the cabin, I spoke quietly, without frightening him. The instant he found I saw him, he walked back again, and deposited the soap nearly in the same place from whence he had taken it. There was certainly something more than instinct in that action: he evidently betrayed a consciousness of having done wrong both by his first and last actions----and what is reason if that is not an exercise of it?" The most ~laborate account of the . natural history of the 0J.tANG-U TAN extant, is that given in the u Verhandelingen t |