1B64.J Note on tie Gibbon of Tenasserim, Kylobates lar\ 19f 



resort to the extreme summits of the loftiest trees, and to call to each 

 other from distant parts of the jungle. After 9 or 10 A. M. they 

 become silent and are engaged feeding on fruit, young leaves, buds> 

 shoots and insects, for which they will occasionally come to the 

 ground; When approached, if alone, they will sometimes sit close, 



doubled up in a thick tuft of foliage, or 

 behind the fork of a tree near the top, so 

 screened as to be quite safe from the shot 

 of the sportsman. The sketch in the mar- 

 gin may show how effectually a single 

 gunner may be baffled in his attempts to 

 secure a specimen. With a companion the 

 manoeuvre of course is useless. But indeed 5 when forced from its con- 

 cealment and put to flight, the Gibbon is not easily shot. It swings 

 from branch to branch with its long arms, shaking the boughs all 

 around, flings itself from prodigious heights into denser foliage, and is 

 quickly concealed from view by intervening trees. 



If hit, there is no animal more tenacious of life, and its efforts 

 when desperately wounded to cling to the branch, and drag itself into 

 some fork or nook where to hitch itself and die, excite amusement and 

 compassion. 



The Gibbon (if we restrict that name to this species) is not nearly 

 so light and active as its congener H. hoohclc, (the "Toobouiig ,? 

 of the Arakanese,) which latter species is not liable to vary in colour, 

 being always black, with the hands and feet concolorous, and the 

 supercilia only white, instead of a circle of that colour all round the 

 face. The Gibbon, moreover, walks less readily on its hind legs than 

 the hoolock, having frequently to prop and urge itself along by its 

 knuckles on the ground. In sitting it often rests on its elbows and 

 will lie readily on its back. Anger it shows by a fixed steady look, 

 with the mouth held open and the lips occasionally retracted to show 

 the canines, with which it can bite severely, but it more usually 

 strikes with its long hands, which are at such times held dangling, 

 and shaken in a ridiculous manner, like a person who has suddenly 

 burnt his fingers. It is, on the whole, a gentle peaceable animal, very 

 timid and so wile! as not to bear confinement if captured adult. The 

 young seldom reach maturity when deprived of liberty. They are 

 born generally in the early part of the cold weather ; a single one at 



2d 



