THE MALAYAN GIBBONS 
the chimpanzee shows himself the most nimble in wits as well 
as in body. As a London keeper told Lydekker: “The orang 
is a buffoon; the chimpanzee a gentleman.” Of the many 
excellent accounts of these young apes one of the fullest is that 
in “Cassell’s Natural History,” Vol. I, where Sayers, Broderip,” 
and other writers are 
quoted extensively. 
Lowest of the an- 
thropoid ape family 
stand the gibbons, — 
slender, monkeylike 
forms of the Indo- 
Malayan region hav- 
ing wholly arboreal 
habits, in 
flocks, and, 
feeding on fruit, 
leaves, insects, spi- 
ders, birds’ eggs, etc. 
They have arms so 
long that when they 
stand upright the 
finger tips touch the 
ground. The jaws 
and nose are pro- 
longed into a snout, 
and the canines are very large in both sexes, while the brain 
is simple. The largest is the Sumatran siamang, which stands 
three feet tall and is shining black; and it, like the orang, has 
distensible air sacs in the throat, connected with the larynx, 
yet its howling is no louder than that of the other gibbons 
which have no such sac. The cry of the siamang is described 
by a correspondent of The Field (Oct. 18, 1879) as precisely 
like the howling of dogs: — 
Gibbons. 
Copyright, N. Y. Zool. Soci-ty. Sanborn, Phot. 
A SIAMANG, 
21 
