450 Mr. E. Blytli's Notices of various Mammalia. 



abounds in those upland forests^ associating in societies of 100 

 or 150 individuals, the combined noise of which may be heard 

 to an immense distance. In general they keep to the tops of 

 the highest Oolung and Mackoi trees {Dipfcrocarpi), to the fruit 

 of which they are very partial ; but on several occasions, when 

 emerging from a footpath through the dense forest into the open 

 ravines formed by the action of the mountain rapids, My. Owen 

 mentions having come suddenly upon a party of them washing 

 and frolicking in the current, who immediately took alarm and 

 retreated into the jungle ; but in one instance, as he was pro- 

 ceeding solitarily along a newly-made road through the forest, 

 he found himself surrounded by a large body of them, impelled 

 perhaps as nnich by curiosity at his European dress and appear- 

 ance, as by resentment at tlic intrusion of a stranger upon their 

 domain ; the trees on either side were full of them, menacing 

 with their gestures and uttering shrill cries; and as he passed 

 on, several descended from the trees behind, and followed him 

 along the road; and he feels sure that they would soon have at- 

 tacked him had not his superior speed on the ground enabled 

 him to escape. Having at first, relates Mr. Owen, to cross a 

 number of felled logs, it was really no easy matter to get away ; 

 but the clear and open road once gained, he was not long in 

 distancing his pursuers. Upon his return, after this threatened 

 attack of the Hoolocks, Mr. Owen asked his Assamese interpreter 

 (who had been brought up in the hills) whether it was usual for 

 these apes to manifest so hostile a disposition ; and he was in- 

 formed that only a few days before, as a party of Nagas were 

 proceeding along one of the tortuous jungle-paths, necessarily in 

 Indian file, the foremost man, who was a little ahead of the rest, 

 was actually attacked and severely bitten on the shoulder, and 

 would probably have been killed by his assailants had not others 

 of his party opportunely come to the rescue, upon which the 

 Hoolocks immediately lied. Indeed I can testify to the capa- 

 bility of these animals to inflict serious injury, from having wit- 

 nessed a tame female of the Sumatran H. agilis suddenly attack 

 her keeper, by springing up at him, grasping his body with her 

 four limbs, and biting at his chest, when it was fortunate for the 

 man that her canines had been previously filed down, in conse- 

 quence, as was said, of her having occasioned the death of a man 

 at Macao*. According to Mr. Owen's account, the Hoolocks 



* From what I have seen of the Gibbon tribe when brought up tame, no 

 animals could be more gentle and good-tempered; but the lady in question 

 had good reason for tlie utter liatred wliicli slie Ijore to her keeper, who 

 used to make her display her wondrous activity a hundred times a day, in 

 swinging from bough to bough of a large artificial tree by means of her fore- 

 limbs only, by frequent application of the whip. 



