164 HYLOBATES 



always black, with the hands and feet concolorous, and the supercilia 

 only white, instead of a circle of that color all around the face. The 

 Gibbon, moreover, walks less readily on its hindlegs than the hoolock, 

 having frequently to prop and urge itself along by its knuckles on the 

 ground. In sitting it often rests on its elbows, and will lie readily on 

 its back. Anger it shows by a fixed steady look, with the mouth held 

 open and the lips occasionally retracted to show the canines, with 

 which it can bite severely, but it more usually strikes with its long 

 hands, which are at such times held dangling and shaken in a ridiculous 

 manner, like a person who has suddenly burnt his fingers. It is, on the 

 whole, a gentle peaceable animal, very timid and so wild as not to 

 bear confinement if captured adult. They are born generally in the 

 early part of the cold weather, a single one at a birth, two being as 

 rare as twins in the human race. The young one sticks to the mother's 

 body for about seven months, and then begins gradually to shift for 

 itself. So entirely does this animal confine itself to its hands for 

 locomotion about the trees, that it holds anything it may have to 

 carry by its hind hands or feet. In this way I have seen them scamper 

 off with their plunder, out of a Karen plantain garden in the forest. 



"I have had many of these animals while young in confinement. 

 They were generally feeble, dull, and querulous, sitting huddled upon 

 the ground, and seldom or never climbing trees. On the smooth 

 surface of a matted floor they would run along on their feet, and 

 slide on their hands at the same time. By being fed solely on plantains, 

 or on milk and rice, they were apt to lose all their fur, presenting in 

 their nude state a most ridiculous appearance. Few recovered from 

 this state ; but a change of diet, especially allowing them to help 

 themselves to insects, enabled some to come round, resuming their 

 natural covering. For the most part they were devoid of those 

 pranks and tricks which are exhibited by the young of the Macacus 

 and Inuus, though occasionally and if not tied up, they would gambol 

 about with cats, pups, or young monkeys. 



"The tawny and black varieties of the Gibbon appear to mix 

 indiscriminately together. The Karens in the Tenasserim provinces 

 consider there is a third variety which they name 'Khay oo kaba,' and 

 the Talains 'Woot-o-padga' (blue ape). This is probably the parti- 

 colored or mottled phase of the animal which occurs very often to the 

 southward in Malacca. The pale variety is more numerous in the 

 district of Amherst than the black one. 



"Hylobates lar extends southward to the Straits, and north- 

 ward to the northerly confines of Pegoo (British Burma); whether 



