31 
injured others so much that, by way of precaution, these 
formidable teeth had been filed down; but, if threatened, 
she would still turn on her keeper. The Gibbons eat insects, 
but appear generally to avoid animal food. A Siamang, 
however, was seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour 
greedily a live lizard. They commonly drink by dipping 
their fingers in the liquid and then licking them. It is 
asserted that they sleep in a sitting posture. 
Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females carry their 
young to the waterside and there wash their faces, in spite of 
resistance and cries. They are gentle and affectionate in cap- 
tivity—full of tricks and pettishness, like spoiled children, 
and yet not devoid of a certain conscience, as an anecdote, 
told by Mr. Bennett (1. c. p. 156), will show. It would appear 
that his Gibbon had a peculiar inclination for disarranging 
things in the cabin. Among these articles, a piece of soap 
would especially attract his notice, and for the removal of this 
he had been once or twice scolded. ‘ One morning,” says 
Mr. Bennett, ‘‘I was writing, the ape being present in the 
cabin, when casting my eyes towards him, I saw the little 
fellow taking the soap. I watched him without his perceiving 
that I did so: and he occasionally would cast a furtive glance 
towards the place where I sat. I pretended to write; he, 
seeing me busily occupied, took the soap, and moved away 
with it in his paw. When he had walked half the length of 
the cabin, I spoke quietly, without frightening him. The in- 
stant he found I saw him, he walked back again, and deposited 
the soap nearly in the same place from whence he had taken 
it. There was certainly something more than instinct in that 
action: he evidently betrayed a consciousness of having done 
wrong both by his first and last actions—and what is reason 
if that is not an exercise of it ?” 
The most elaborate account of the natural history of the 
Orane-Uran extant, is that given in the “ Verhandelingen 
