SIMIAD.E. 457 



by no means improbable, that both M. Geoffrey and Desmarest have 

 consulted it. 



The male Kahau is remarkable for size and strength; and, from 

 the magnitude of his canines, he must be a formidable animal. The 

 female, however, is considerably smaller, a difference in size to which 

 Wurmb expressly alludes, in the following description, which comprises 

 all we really know respecting the habits of this species a descrip- 

 tion which appeared in the Memoirs of the Society of Batavia, and 

 is quoted by Audebert in his Histoire des Singes et Makis. These Apes, 

 he informs us, " associate in large troops ; their cry, which is deep-toned, 

 distinctly resembles the word, Kahau ; and it is, without doubt, by 

 changing the letter H into B, that some Europeans name them, Kabou. 

 The natives of Ponteana give to this Ape the name of Bantanjan, in con- 

 sequence of the peculiar form of its nose. These animals assemble, 

 morning and evening, at the rising and setting of the sun, along the 

 border of rivers ; they are to be seen on the branches of lofty trees, 

 where they offer an agreeable spectacle, darting, with great rapidity, 

 from one tree to another, at the distance of fifteen or twenty feet. I have 

 not observed that they hold their nose while leaping, as the natives 

 affirm ; but I have seen that they then stretch out their paws in an 

 extraordinary manner. Their food is unknown ; whence it is impossible to 

 preserve them alive. They are of different sizes ; some, indeed, are seen 

 which are not above a foot in height, but which, nevertheless, have young." 



With regard to the inferiority in size of the females, it is to be 

 observed, that an aged female, dissected by the Author, measured one 

 foot nine inches from the vertex to the callosities ; and was a slender, 

 meagre animal, very unlike, in this respect, all the preserved specimens 

 which he has examined ; and in which robustness forms a principal 

 characteristic. The nose of this female exactly resembled that of the 

 male ; the teeth were greatly worn down. 



The purposes to be fulfilled in the economy of the Kahau, by the 

 development of the nose, in a mode parallelled by none of the Simiadae 

 besides, are altogether problematical. It may be connected with an 

 increase in the function of smelling, on the acuteness of which the 

 animal may depend, as a means of obtaining some particular kind of food ; 

 but this is a mere supposition ; and until an opportunity is afforded of 

 observing the Kahau in confinement, which appears never to have occurred, 

 even in its native country, many conjectures may be formed, all wide of 

 the truth. It would appear that the development of this organ only takes 

 place upon the approach of maturity ; and Wurmb asserts that the animal 

 has the power of distending or inflating its capacious nostrils with air, to the 

 extent of full an inch, or more ; but whether this distention be a sign of 

 anger, fear, or pleasure, we are not informed. Desmarest states that the 



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