54 APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS 



hair it had torn off the skin and swallowed. After a week's captivity, the young 

 ape was fed from a spoon, containing a mixture of soaked biscuit, egg, and sugar, 

 or, at other times, sweet potatoes. This food was swallowed readily, and with ap- 

 parent satisfaction ; the creature making droll grimaces to express either pleasure or 

 the reverse. When it had swallowed anything which appeared grateful, it drew in 

 its cheeks, and screwed up its eyes ; while, when the food was distasteful from want 

 of sufficient sugar or other cause, the creature, after turning it about in its mouth 

 for a short time, finally ejected it. If this rejected food were again offered to it, the 

 animal displayed marked displeasure by loudly screaming and throwing its arms 

 about. 



After three weeks a young macaque monkey was introduced to the orang, and 

 the two, although very different in demeanor, soon became fast friends. Mr. Wal- 

 lace particularly noticed the helplessness of the young orang when compared with 

 the macaque ; and it appears that this character distinguishes the young of all the 

 Man-like Apes from those of the lower monkeys. Even after the young orang had 

 been about a month in captivity, it was very unsteady when placed on its hands 

 and feet, and would frequently overbalance itself and topple over. When it required 

 attention, it would cry loudly for a time, but if this met with no reply, the young 

 creature would remain quiet till a step was heard approaching, when its calls would 

 be at once renewed. Although at the end of four weeks the two upper incisor teeth 

 had been cut, the little creature, doubtless owing to improper food, had not increased 

 perceptibly in weight ; and soon after it sickened and died of a kind of intermittent 

 fever, to the great regret of its owner. 



The illustration on p. 53 shows some of the postures assumed by a young 

 orang formerly living in the Aquarium at Berlin. 



Under the head of the Chimpanzee we have already mentioned 

 that a fossil species of ape apparently referable to the same genus has 

 been found in the later Tertiary strata of Northern India. The same strata have 

 also yielded the broken tusk, or canine tooth, of another large ape, which there is 

 every reason to believe was a species of orang. If this be so, we shall be justified 

 in considering that India was the original home of the ancestors of all the large 

 Man-like Apes of the present day ; and that from this centre their descendants have 

 gradually dispersed to the eastward and south westward. We thus have an easy 

 explanation of the present peculiar geographical distribution of the various groups 

 of large Man-like Apes now existing. 



In addition to these fossil Indian apes we have, moreover, sure evidence that 

 at an earlier part of the Tertiary Period, known as the Miocene Age, at least one 

 species of large Man-like Apes inhabited Western Europe. This extinct creature 

 has been named the Dryopithecus, and its remains have been found in France. It 

 appears to have been about the same size as the chimpanzee ; but differs from all 

 the living Man-like Apes in the great length of the bony union between the two 

 branches of the lower jaw. In this respect this ape, as we might have expected 

 would be the case, approaches decidedly towards the lower monkeys. 



