186 ARBOREAL MAN 



in which the Gibbons attend to their young, and the 

 mothers have been seen to take their babies to the water 

 and carefully wash and dry them (Bock); even the 

 A~i*v Gorilla has been seen to correct its offspring by boxing 

 ^ y/ , its ears when it misbehaved (Koppenfels). Not only is 

 the display of maternal care much more marked in all 

 these higher arboreal Primates, but it is exercised for a 

 very much longer period than in any other animals. 

 Arboreal Primate babies have a very long babyhood and 

 a long infancy. The baby Gibbon (Hylobates lar) clings to 

 its mother for about seven months (Blanford), and it 

 is not fully mature until it is fourteen or fifteen years old 

 (Hartman). The young Orang-utan is dependent upon 

 its mother for about two years, and is not fully adult 

 until it is fifteen (Forbes). 



This prolongation of infancy, and the period of youthful 

 dependence, has probably a rather widely reaching 

 influence. It calls for a much more prolonged exercise 

 of parental care and control, and causes these attributes 

 to be more or less permanent characteristics, rather than 

 periodically recurring manifestations of an instinct. 

 Again, the prolongation of infancy may be said to be 

 the especial factor which created the family as a social 

 unit. In almost all the higher Vertebrates it is the habit 

 of the male parent to remain with the mother during the 

 helpless early stages of the offspring, and in many in- 

 stances (in several orders) he even plays his part in caring 

 for the young during their most dependent period. In 

 the Primates, the sJiare that the male takes in the duties 

 of parenthood has often been noted. The males have 

 repeatedly been seen to carry the young on their arboreal 

 journeys, and it has even been asserted that the male 

 of the Siamang Gibbon (Hylobates syndactylus) always 

 1 carries the baby if it be a male, the female parent only 

 carrying a female offspring (Diard). 



In whatever degree parental duties to the helpless 

 offspring are discharged by the male arboreal Primate, 



