44: THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 



dote, told by Mr. Bennett (I. c. p. 156), will show. 

 It would appear that his Gibbon had a peculiar in- 

 clination for disarranging things in the cabin. 

 Among these articles, a piece of soap would espe- 

 cially 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; 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 in- 

 stant 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 elaborate account of the natural 

 history of the Okaxg-Utan extant, is that given 

 in the " Verhandelingen over de Xatuurlijke Ge- 

 schiedenis der Nederlandsche overzeesche Bezit- 

 tingen (1839-'45)," by Dr. Salomon Miiller and 

 Dr. Sehlegel, and I shall base what I have to say 



