Monkeys I Have Met 



holding babies. Her attention to its toilet has 

 throughout been most assiduous, and the child 

 altogether seemed to want so much care that I 

 very much doubt if a wild monkey could succeed 

 in rearing twins, which are fortunately very rare 

 among them. 



To proceed to monkeys of a higher grade. It 

 has never been my good fortune to see any of the 

 anthropoid apes wild, but I have had consider- 

 able acquaintance with some of them in the East 

 under more favourable conditions than are pos- 

 sible here. I am thinking especially of a speci- 

 men of the hoolock (Hylobates koolock), one of 

 the long-armed apes or gibbons, which was for 

 some years at liberty in the Calcutta Zoo in my 

 time. This beast was a black specimen (a male), 

 and looked very like a little man in a fur coat as 

 he ran along the ground, when he had to travel 

 across a space where it was impossible to swing 

 from tree to tree. It is a curious fact that these 

 gibbons, which are supposed to approach the 

 lower monkeys more nearly than other anthro- 

 poids, should have this peculiarly human gait, for 

 they always go on their hind legs on the rare 

 occasions when they visit the ground. Gibbons 

 are generally nice animals, and this one was for 

 a long time no exception. Of course, he found a 

 good deal of his food himself, but rations were 



daily issued to him at the entrance - lodge, for 



283 



