Chap. XVIII.] POWERS OF HIGHER BRUTES 323 



is, however, recognizable in a still more striking degree, 

 when we come to the so-called * man-like ' Apes, viz., the 

 Gibbons, the Chimpanzee, the Gorilla, and the Orang- 

 utan, as a few details will show. 



A writer in " Nature " (Jan. 29, 1874) says : — 



" I keep in mj garden a number of Gibbon aipes {Hylolates agilis) ; 

 tliey live quite free from all restraint in the trees, merely coming when 

 called to be fed. One of these, a yonng male, on one occasion fell from 

 a tree and dislocated his wrist; it received the greatest attention 

 from the others, especially from an old female, who, however, was 

 no relation ; she used, before eating her own plantains, to take 

 up the first that were offered to her every day and give them to 

 the cripple, who was living in the eaves of a wooden house ; and 

 I have frequently noticed that a cry of fright, pain or distress from, 

 one, would bring all the others at once to the complainer, and they 

 would then condole with him and fold him in their arms." 



Concerning the largest of the Gibbons, the Siamang, a 

 native of Sumatra, some interesting details have been 

 given by G. Bennett,* of an animal which he brought 

 home with him from Singapore. ** Its disposition was 

 gentle but animated and lively ; and it delighted in 

 playing frolics. With a little Papuan child on board 

 this Siamang became very intimate ; they might often 

 be seen sitting near the capstan, the animal with its long 

 arm round her neck, eating biscuit together. In his 

 gambols with the child he would roll on deck with her, 



as if in mock combat His temper, however, 



was irritable, and on being disappointed, or confined, he 

 would throw himself into fits of rage, screaming, rolling 

 about, and dashing everything aside within his reach : 

 he would then rise, walk about in a hurried manner, and 

 repeat the scene as before. With the cessation of his fit 

 of anger he did not abandon his purpose, and often 



* Knight's " Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature," p. 31. 



