472 OUR KNOWLEDGE LIMITED. 



In the age of Linne, the apes of which we speak were but imper- 

 fectly known. Even now-a-days our information upon the subjects 

 of their intelligence, manners, and habits, is defective and fragmen- 

 tary. The individuals whom we have retained in captivity have 

 died while very young, and it is impossible to say whether their 

 early mildness and intelligence would have proved as transitory in 

 them as in the Macaucos and the Cynocephali, who, as they advance 

 in years, display the most brutal instincts. In their adult state, the 

 Anthropomorphic Apes have not been really studied. Travellers have 

 penetrated into their forests only to attack them with rifle-balls, and 

 have told us but little of the manner in which they comport them- 

 selves. As for the details collected from natives inhabiting their 

 vicinity, they are so contradictory, and mixed up with so much 

 which is fabulous, that it is impossible to draw any conclusions from 

 them in reference to the habits of these animals. 



Four distinct genera of the Anthropomorphic Apes are now 

 recognized by naturalists : two belonging to Southern Asia, or rather 

 the great Indian Archipelago viz., the Orang and the Gibbon ; two 

 to Tropical Africa viz., the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla. I shall 

 describe their peculiarities in my next chapter. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE ANTHROPOMORPHIC APES : ORANGS, GIBBONS, CHIMPANZEES, 



AND GORILLAS. 



THE genus Orang-Outang (Simla Satyrus), or " Wild Man of the 

 Woods," is a native of the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java, and 

 of a limited portion of the Malayan peninsula. We must dismiss as 

 travellers' fables the exaggerated recitals which attribute to this Ape 

 a gigantic stature (six to seven feet). The tallest specimens which 



