80 THE WHITE-HANDED GIBBON. 



births, but as a rule it seems that about the time the third 

 infant appears the eldest is sufficiently adult to take a partner 

 with whom it starts life-on its own account. 



It is thus rather interesting to note that while the lower 

 monkeys of nearly all species go about in bands — Presbytes 

 obscurus is inclined to pair, however — in the case of the man- 

 like apes (with the exception of the chimpanzee, perhaps the 

 most intelligent of them all; the siamang and the Indian 

 hoolock) the social unit is the family. This is, by many 

 authorities, held to have been the state of primitive man 

 before he became intellectual enough to recognise the advan- 

 tages derived from union. 



While their inactive habits compelled the gorilla and 

 orang and possibly primitive man to be practically solitary 

 as otherwise they would have exhausted their food supplies, 

 ihis is not the case with the gibbon the most agile of all the 

 apes. I hope to contribute to a forth-coming journal some 

 notes on the relationship between the gibbon's structure and 

 its habits. 



C. B. K. 



Jour. Straits BrA&eh« 



