THE SIAMANG. oOO 



and kills it with a vigorous bite. The Mias is very strong, 

 stronger than any other animal of the jungle. 



Rajah Brooke, who observed the sluggish Urans in their wild 

 state, relates that even when chased and alarmed by the shouts 

 of men and the firing, they never went from tree to tree faster 

 than a man might easily follow through the jungle below. In 

 general they sought the very summit of a lofty tree, and often 

 remained seated without changing their position whilst several 

 shots were discharged at them. The Dyaks catch them in the 

 following manner. Having discovered the animal in a tree, 

 they approach without disturbing him, and as quickly as 

 possible cut down all the trees around the one he is in. Being 

 previously provided with poles, some with nooses attached to 

 the ends and others forked, they fell the isolated tree, and 

 noosing and forking down the uran, soon make him their 

 captive. 



The series of the large anthropomorphous apes closes with the 

 Gribbons. Their arms, which reach to the ankle joints when the 

 ^animal is standing erect, are longer than those of the uran; their 

 brain, and consequently their intelligence, is less developed ; and 

 moreover, like all the following simiae of the Old World, they 

 )ossess callosities on each side of the tail. Their size is inferior 

 %o that of the uran, and their body is covered with thicker hair, 

 grey, brown, black, or white — according to the species — but 

 never party-coloured, as is the case with many of the long-tailed 

 monkeys. 



To the gibbons belong the black Siamang of Sumatra — who, 

 assembled in large troops, hails the first blush of early morn, 

 and bids farewell to the setting sun with dreadful clamours— the 

 black, white-bearded Lar of Siam and Malacca, and the Wou- 

 Wou {Hylohates leuciscus), who, hanging suspended by his long 

 arms, and swinging to and fro in the air, allows one to approach 

 within fifty yards, and then, suddenly dropping upon a lower 

 branch, climbs again leisurely to the top of the tree. He is a 

 quiet, solitary creature of a melancholy peaceful nature, pursu- 

 ing a harmless life, feeding upon fruits in the vast untrodden 

 recesses of the forest ; and his peculiar noise is in harmony 

 with the sombre stillness of these dim regions, commencing 

 like the gurgling of water when a bottle is being filled, and 

 ending with a long loud wailing cry, which resounds throughout 



h 



