THE GORILLA AND OTHER APES. 311 



he seized in his mouth, making his teeth meet in the flesh 

 above the elbow, which he tore and lacerated in a dreadful 

 manner. Had not the others been close behind, the man 

 would have been more seriously injured, if not killed, as he 

 was quite powerless ; but they soon destroyed the creature 

 with their spears and choppers. The man remained ill for 

 a long time, and never fully recovered the use of his arm." 



The term gibbon includes several varieties of tail-less, 

 long-armed, catarhine apes. The largest variety, called the 

 siamang, need alone be described here. 



The siamang inhabits Sumatra, It presents several points 

 of resemblance to the orang-outang, but is also in several 

 respects strongly distinguished from that animal. The arms 

 are longer even than the orang's, and the peculiar use which 

 the orang makes of his long arms is more strikingly shown 

 in the progression of the long-armed siamang, for the body 

 inclining slightly forward, when the animal is on level ground 

 the long arms are used somewhat like crutches, and they 

 advance by jerks resembling the hobbling of a lame man 

 whom fear compels to make an extraordinary effort The 

 skull is small, and much more depressed than that of the 

 orang or chimpanzee. The face is naked and black, strag- 

 gling red hairs marking the eyebrows. The eyes are deeply 

 sunk, a peculiarity which, by the way, seems characteristic 

 of arboreal creatures generally ; * the nose broad and flat, 



* It may be suggested, in passing, that the association which has 

 been commonly noticed between prominent eyeballs and command of 

 language (phrenologists place the organ of language, in their unscientific 

 phraseology, behind the eyeballs) may be related in some degree to the 

 circumstance that in gradually emerging from the condition of an arbo- 

 real creature the anthropoid ape would not only cease to derive advan- 

 tage from sunken eyes, but would be benefited by the possession of more 

 prominent eyeballs. The increasing prominence of the eyeballs would 

 thus be a change directly associated with the gradual advance of the 

 animal to a condition in which, associating into larger and larger com- 

 panies and becoming more and more dependent on mutual assistance 

 and discipline, they would require the use of a gradually extending 

 series of vocal signs to indicate their wants and wishes to each other. 



