POSITION OF HYLOBATES 



attack made by an orang upon a tree,consisting of showers 

 of hard fruits with which it assiduously pelted its pur- 

 suers. Structurally it may be noted that the orang 

 differs from the other anthropoid apes in its small and 

 delicately shaped ears, much like those of the gorilla, 

 in the small size of, and absence of a nail upon, the great 

 toe. It is curious, too, that this ape has its femur loose 

 in the socket by reason of the absence of a ligament 

 binding that bone to the hip bone. This may account 

 for its cautious and deliberate movements when moving 

 from branch to branch of its native trees. This ape 

 builds a kind of nest in trees, which is not a permanent 

 dwelling place, but merely a place of temporary sojourn. 

 It is built of a number of branches laid together and 

 covered with leaves, and is about a yard and a half 

 across. 



THE HOOLOCK 



The Hoolock and its immediate relatives, the other 

 members of the genus Hylobates, or gibbons, stand a 

 little below the chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orang, 

 which complete the list of living anthropoid apes. 

 In intelligence they are not inferior at all ; indeed they 

 seem to possess the greater sharpness often incidental 

 to small size. But structurally the gibbons form a 

 link, not very perfect, with the lower standing Catarrhine 

 monkeys. 



To begin with, there are in these anthropoids at least 

 traces of the ischial callosities so characteristic of the 

 Old World monkeys. The canine teeth, large enough 

 it is true in the old male gorilla, are still larger propor- 

 tionately in the Hoolock, and thus more closely approach 

 such teeth in lower mammals. The brain is rather 

 simpler, but perhaps this is merely a matter of smaller 

 size than of affinity to the macaques and such like, 



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