LONG-TAILED DWELLERS OF THE TREE-TOPS. 245 



looking at it and grinning. When convinced that the ven- 

 omous fangs are destroyed, they toss the reptile to their 

 young ones to play with, and seem to rejoice in the de- 

 struction of their common enemy." 



7. The gibbons, or long-armed apes, are natives of 

 Southern Asia and the adjacent islands. Mr. Wallace 

 says : " They are generally 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 will swing to-and- 

 fro, and then throw itself a great distance through the air. 

 The arms, in fact, completely take the place of legs in 

 traveling. 



8. "Instead of jumping from bough to bough, and 

 running on the branches, like other apes and monkeys, the 

 gibbons move along while 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 the 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. 



9. " These little animals scarcely ever come down to 

 the ground of their own accord ; 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 naturally walk without using their hands as well as 

 their feet ; but this does not make them move like men, 



