26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



long, while in size and strength it is not much inferior to the gorilla. 

 These large baboons go in bands, and are said to be a match for any- 

 other animals in the African forests, and even to attack and drive 

 away the elephants from the districts they inhabit. 



Turning now to Asia, we have first one of the best known of the 

 large man-like apes the orang-outang, found only in the two large 

 islands, Borneo and Sumatra. The name is Malay, signifying " man 

 of the woods," and it should be pronounced orang-ootang, the accent 

 being on the first syllable of both words. It is a very curious circum- 

 stance that, whereas the gorilla and chimpanzee are both black, like 

 the negroes of the same country, the orang-outang is red or reddish- 

 brown, closely resembling the color of the Malays and Dyaks who live 

 in the Bornean forests. Though very large and powerful, it is a harm- 

 less creature, feeding on fruit, and never attacking any other animal 

 except in self-defense. A full-grown male orang-outang is rather more 

 than four feet high, but with a body as large as that of a stout man, 

 and with enormously long and powerful arms. 



Another group of true apes inhabit Asia and the larger Asiatic 

 islands, and are in some respects the most remarkable of the whole 

 family. These are the gibbons, or long-armed apes, w^hich are gen- 

 erally of small size and of a gentle disposition, but possessing the most 

 wonderful agility. In these creatures the arms are as long as the body 

 and legs together, and are so powerful that a gibbon will hang for 

 hours suspended from a branch, or swing to-and-fro, and then throw 

 itself a great distance through the air. The arms, in fact, completely 

 take the place of the legs for traveling. Instead of jumping from 

 bough to bough, and running on the branches, like other apes and 

 monkeys, the gibbons move along while hanging suspended in the air, 

 stretching their arms from bough to bough, and thus going hand over 

 hand as a very active sailor will climb along a rope. The strength of 

 their arms is, however, so prodigious, and their hold so sure, that they 

 often loose one hand before they have caught a bough with the other, 

 thus seeming almost to fly through the air by a series of swinging 

 leaps ; and they travel among the net-work of interlacing boughs a 

 hundred feet above the earth with as much ease and certainty as we 

 walk or run upon level ground, and with even greater speed. These 

 little animals scarcely ever come down to the ground of their own ac- 

 cord ; but, when obliged to do so, they run along almost erect, with 

 their long arms swinging round and round, as if trying to find some 

 tree or other object to climb upon. They are the only apes who nat- 

 urally walk without using their hands as well as their feet ; but this 

 does not make them more like men, for it is evident that the attitude 

 is not an easy one, and is only adopted because the arms are habitually 

 used to swing by, and are therefore naturally held upward instead of 

 downward, as they must be when walking on them. 



The tailed monkeys of Asia consist of two groups, the first of which 



