ORDER QUADRUMANA. 257 



one: maternal affection will predominate over their other 

 passions, and the mother of the bleeding young will imme' 

 diately throw away her own life in an ineffectual attack on the 

 enemy in which her desperation and want of tact for combat 

 are alike displayed. Affection for their young is also dis- 

 played under more pleasing circumstances, and their care 

 of the persons of their young by washing, rubbing, and 

 drying them, in spite of the pettish cries and resistance of 

 the infant Siamang, is highly ludicrous and amusing. 



The Malays affirm, that the young siamang, before it 

 can go alone, is always carried about by the parent of the 

 same sex as itself; and also that these animals frequently 

 fall a prey to the tiger, <Sfc, by the influence of that sort 

 of charm which the serpent tribe exercises over birds, 

 squirrels, fyc. 



This species is easily tamed, or rather reconciled to 

 bondage, and will become in a very few days as indifferent 

 as it was before wild. But unconquerably timid, it never 

 displays the familiarity found in other monkeys, and its 

 submission seems rather the result of extreme apathy than 

 of confidence or affection. Equally insensible of good or 

 bad treatment, gratitude and hate appear to be strangers to 

 its exciteless mind. The Siamang, in short, displays but 

 very little of intellectual faculty, generally squatting 

 enveloped in its long arms, and the head brought down 

 between the legs, (in which position it also sleeps,) it 

 passes the greatest part of its time in sullen retirement ; 

 and seldom breaks its silence except by occasional dis- 

 agreeable cries, not dissimilar to those of the turkey, which 

 appear to express nothing and to be uttered without a 

 cause. Even hunger can scarce draw it from its lethargic 

 apathy : in confinement it takes food with leisure and in- 

 difference, conveys it to the mouth without avidity, and 

 submits to its being taken away almost without an effort to 

 retain it Its mode of drinking is equally measured with 



