APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS. 



its name. These wailing cries, which are uttered hour after hour in the 

 morning, and again, although less continuously, in the evening, may be heard 

 for miles when a whole drove are shouting in concert ; and even those of a 

 solitary individual in the Calcutta Gardens made themselves audible at least 

 a mile off. 



Out of a total of eight species of the genus, the siamang (H. syndactylus) 

 of Sumatra is the largest, measuring more than a yard in length ; and it 

 differs from all the rest by having the second and third toes of the hind foot 

 united by a web as far as their terminal joints. In colour, the siamang is 

 uniformly black throughout, and in this respect it agrees with the Hainan 

 gibbon (H. hainanus) \ whereas, in all the other species there is a white band 

 across the forehead. Among these latter, one of the best known is the 

 hulock (H. hulock) from Assam and the countries immediately to the east. 

 Writing of the cries of another species (H. leuciscus), Mr. H. O. Forbes 

 observes that it " makes its presence known to the traveller in Java, when 

 he reaches its upland forest-districts. In the evening just about sundown, 

 and more especially in the early morning, commencing before sunrise and 

 finally ceasing when the sun is above the tops of the trees, he will be surprised 

 by a sudden outbreak of what appears to be now the plaintive wailings of a 

 crowd of women, now the united howling of a band of castigated children." 



The whole of the remaining monkeys and baboons of the Old World form a 

 second family, which, while agreeing with the man-like apes in the number 



of their teeth, differ by the crowns of the molars 

 being surmounted by a pair of transverse 

 ridges, each formed by the 

 coalescence of two sub-conical 

 tubercles. All the members 

 of the family have naked cal- 

 losities on the buttocks, and 

 cheek-pouches are very gener- 

 ally present. The breast-bone differs from 

 that of the man-like apes in being laterally 

 compressed and narrow, instead of broad and 

 flattened from back to front. The tail, which 

 may be either- wanting, short, or very long, is 

 never endowed with the power of prehension ; 

 and the partition between the two nostrils is 

 narrow. Eight existing genera are included 

 in the family, some of which are Oriental, 

 while others are confined to Africa south of 

 the Sahara. None are known from Mada- 

 gascar, New Guinea, or Australia, the eastern 

 limits of the group being formed by Celebes 

 and the Philippine Islands, 



The most ludicrous in appearance of all the tribe is the well-known 

 proboscis-monkey (Nasalis larvatus) of Borneo, easily distin- 

 guished from all its kin by the extraordinary length of its nose. 

 This monkey, together with the two following genera, con- 

 stitutes a sub-family characterised by the absence of cheek- 

 pouches for storing food, the complex and sacculated 

 structure of the stomach, the great length of the tail, and also by the front 

 limbs bein<* shorter than the hinder pair. _ All these monkeys feed largely or 



Old World 



Monkeys. 



Family 



Cercopithecidce. 



Fig, 10. PROBOSCIS-MONKEY 

 (Nasalis larvatus). 



Proboscis- 

 Monkey 

 (Nasalis). 



