201 



APE APENNINES. 



angular conformation serves to adapt these creatures 

 to their situations, in a manner which would scarcely 

 be imagined, witiiout having Ix-en witnessed. They 

 spend their days cliiefly upon the tops and branches 

 of lofty trees, canes, and bamboos, iind, in passing 

 from one to the other, are forced to make reai le;<|i>. 

 The advantage of their vaM. length of limb is tlien 

 rendered evident, as the gibbons would be unable to 

 cling with their hinder hands to a long, flexile branch, 

 swayed in various directions by the breeze, were it 

 not (hat they can maintain their position by balancing 

 themselves with their long arms. On the loftiest 

 brandies of the gigantic eastern forest trees, troops 

 of these animals are seen sitting balanced in per- 

 fect security, and some of the species at sunrise and 

 sunset scream forth discordant cries from such posi- 

 tions. If any circumstance occur to disturb these 

 orisons, the apes disappear with amazing celerity into 

 the depths of the forest, springing from tree to tree, 

 swinging themselves to great distances by their long 

 arms, and catching as readily at the next object with 

 tlie posterior lianas. The orangs of Borneo attain to 

 the greatest size, growing to be five or six feet high ; 

 and travellers speak of apes of a still larger size. 

 They are represented, with justice, as terrible animals, 

 and are endowed with unexampled strength of limb, 

 one adult ape being more than a match for several 

 unarmed men. They cause much terror to the na- 

 tives residing near their haunts, and commit great 

 ravages among the plantations of fruit, &c. The 

 orang most frequently exhibited and closely observed 

 in captivity is the chimpanzee, joco or wild man of 

 the woods, commonly called orang-otang (S. troglo- 

 dyte, L.) This species is an inhabitant of Africa, 

 and especially of the coasts of Congo and Angola. 

 In the proportions of its members, and form or the 

 head, it most closely resembles the human kind. It 

 is a very amusing, though, at the same time, an unpro- 

 ductive employment, to read the monstrous exagge- 

 rations and ridiculous fables, which have been written 

 of this animal by various learned authors. As they 

 ;ur always obtained when very young, they are 

 trained to the performance of actions, which their 

 exhibitors afterwards are careful to say have been 

 acquired by voluntary imitation. It is, however, 

 only after long and painful discipline that this edu- 

 cation is effected ; and, this once terminated, they ad- 

 vance no farther. They never exhibit as much sa- 

 gacity as is shown by a good dog, nor are they capa- 

 ble of an equal degree of improvement. As they 

 advance in life, they become untractable and savage, 

 and, if Cuvier's opinion be confirmed, that the pongo 

 of Africa is this orang-otang in a state of maturity, 

 they become, with age, the most terrible and indo- 

 mitable of their whole race. Lascivious, filthy, glut- 

 tonous, and ferocious, they offer to man a perfect 

 picture of what he would be, were he, like them, des- 

 titute of the divine faculty of reason, which controls 

 the brute impulses of his organization. In their na- 

 tive haunts, these animals manifest differences suffi- 

 ciently striking, in their habits and modes of life, to 

 render them interesting objects of contemplation. 

 Some of the species are remarkable for great activity ; 

 others are sluggish, indolent, and inert. The females 

 manifest an ardent attacliment to their offspring, and 

 make vigorous efforts to save them from injury. All 

 show various degrees of that restless mobility, which 

 indicates how much they are under the exclusive in- 

 fluence of sensation, without appearing to form con- 

 clusions from their repeated experience. An ape, in 

 captivity, on seeing his image in a mirror, will look 

 behind it to discover the animal reflected ; and will 

 as eagerly perform this action after the thousandth 

 repetition 'as the first. Our limits will not permit us 

 to enter more particularly into this subject ; but the 



curious reader will find in the works of F. Cuvier 

 details sufficiently ample to satisfy the most inquisitive 

 spirit. 



A-PF.AK (A pique, Fr.) ; perpendicular to the anchor. 

 A ship is said to be in this situation, when the cabl 

 is drawn so tight into the !N>W as to bring her directly 

 over the anchor, so that the cable bears right down 

 from the ship's stem. 



APELLSS, the most famous of the ancient portrait- 

 painters, was the son of Pythias ; prolwbly born at 

 Colophon. At Ephesus, he received the rights of 

 citizenship, and therefore is called, sometimes, the 

 Ephesian. Ephorus of Ephesus was his first teacher, 

 but, attracted by the renown of the Sicyonian school, 

 which distinguished itself by exact study, he l>ecame 

 the disciple of Pamphilus, in Sicyon, though already 

 himself an artist of reputation. Here he executed, 

 with some other pupils, of the same master, different 

 paintings, which, for a long time, enjoyed great lame. 

 In the time of Philip, A. went to Macedonia, and 

 there, probably, the friendship and familiar inter 

 course between him and the king were established, 

 which have given origin to so many anecdotes. 

 But many of these may relate to a meeting with Al- 

 exander in Ephesus, where A. had gone, after a short 

 stay at Rhodes, Cos, and Alexandria. While staying 

 at Rhodes, being in the study of Protogenes, during 

 the absence of the latter, he drew a sketch, in which 

 Protogenes, on his return, recognised the masterly 

 stroke of A., and undertook to excel him. A. re 

 turned and drew a third sketch, superior to both, s 

 that the Rhodian painter declared himself conquered. 

 The table containing the figures was afterward* 

 brought to Rome, and ornamented the palace of the 

 Caesars, till destroyed in a conflagration. The most 

 celebrated painting of this artist Alexander holding 

 the lightning, from which the chief light of the pic- 

 ture proceeds stood in the temple of Ephesus. By 

 a happy application of perspective and chiaro-oscuro, 

 the hand with the lightning seemed to project from 

 the picture. Tle talent and renown of A. were at 

 their height in the 112th Olympiad. Yet, after the 

 death of Alexander, he several times painted king 

 Antiochus. This must have happened in the 118th 

 Olympiad. Death seems to have surprised the artist 

 in Cos, where an unfinished Venus was shown as his 

 work, which nobody dared to complete. But the 

 story that A., at the court of Ptolemy, at Alexandria, 

 was accused, by the painter AntiphUus, of being en- 

 gaged in a conspiracy, and that, his innocence being 

 proved, he took revenge on the king and his rival, 

 by a picture of Calumny, must refer to another artist 

 of the same name. Tolken, professor at the univer- 

 sity of Berlin, in his lecture, Apclles and AntiphUus, 

 in vol. iii. of Amalthea, has proved that this ApelleS 

 lived between the Olympiads 139 and 144, conse- 

 quently 100 years later than the contemporary of 

 Alexander. The greatest merit of A. was inimitable 

 grace ; his works were full of life, grace, and poetry, 

 and his art, therefore, was justly called ars Apellea. 

 According to Pliny, A. generally painted with four 

 colours only, which he made to harmonize by means 

 of the varnish, which he himself had invented. 



APENNINES, or APPENXINES ; a chain of mountain!* 

 beginning near the Maritime Alps, not far from 

 Genoa, there forming the pass of Bocchetta, extend- 

 ing through all Iteiy to the shores of Otrantoand tl it- 

 straits of Sicily, and dividing it into two nearly equal 

 parts, eastern and western. The Apennines are 

 covered to the top with trees, especially chesnut trees, 

 the fruit of which, in some countries, is the principal 

 food of the inhabitants. Lower than the Alps, the 

 Apennines present only a few elevated summits ; 

 e. g., the Gran Sasso, at Aquila, in the province ot 

 Abruzzo, 8255 feet high, and the Velino, 7872 feet 



