12 
ORDERS OF MAMMALS— APES AND MONKEYS 
Zoological Park contained four Orangs, all of 
which were easily taught to wear clothes, sit in 
chairs at table, eat with fork and spoon, drink 
from cups and bottles, and perform many other 
human-like actions without nervousness, in the 
presence of two thousand visitors. Each of the 
Orangs learned its part in about two weeks’ 
training, and at the dinner-table acted with 
gravity and decorum. “Rajah,” the senior 
member of the quartette, never once suffered 
from stage fright, or lost his nerve during a pub- 
lic performance. 
In captivity, young Orang-Utans are as af- 
fectionate as human children, and very fond of 
their human friends. In the jungles of Borneo 
the full-grown males often fight savagely by 
biting each other’s faces, and by biting off fingers 
and toes. At night the Orang makes a nest 
to sleep upon, by breaking off leafy branches, 
and laying them cross-wise in the forked top of 
a sapling. On this huge nest-like bed it lies flat 
upon its back, grasps a branch firmly in each 
hand and foot, and is rocked to sleep by the 
cradle-like swaying of the tree-top. 
Unless attacked at close quarters, in their for- 
est homes, none of the great apes is dangerous 
to man. All of them flee quickly from the 
dreaded presence of Man, the Destroyer. They 
never fight with clubs, but when attacked at 
close quarters they bite, just as do human roughs. 
When enraged, the gorilla does beat its breast 
with its fists, just as Du Chaillu said; and it does 
this even in captivity. 
“The Missing Link.” — For thirty years at 
least, Science has been seeking in the earth for 
fossil remains of some creature literally standing 
between man and the great apes, but at present 
unknown. In 1879, Mr. A. H. Everett made for 
the Zoological Society of London a thorough 
examination of the deposits on the floors of some 
of the caverns of Borneo. To-day, some natural- 
ists are straying toward the lemurs in search of 
the parent stem of man’s ancestral tree. Vain 
quest! The gap between Man and Lemur is too 
great to be bridged in this world. A coincidence 
between skull bones is a long way from man- 
likeness. 
Place upon the shoulders of a gorilla the head 
of a chimpanzee, and we would have — what? 
The Missing Link, no less, — a hairy, speechless 
man! The man-apes we have. Let those who 
seek the undiscovered ape-man search the Ter- 
tiary deposits of the fertile uplands that lie 
between the gloomy equatorial forests of the 
black apes and the Bushmen of South Africa: 
for there, if anywhere, will the Missing Link 
be found. 
The Gibbons. — From the three huge, coarse- 
ly-formed and unwieldy man-like apes described 
above, the line of descent drops abruptly and far. 
Their nearest relatives are the Gibbons — creat- 
ures of small size, marked delicacy of form, no 
weight or strength to speak of, but of marvellous 
agility in the tree-tops. Their heads are small 
and round, their teeth are weak, and their faces 
are like those of very tiny old men. 
Their arms and hands are of great length in 
proportion to their body size, yet so very slender 
are their muscles that a live Gibbon seems like a 
hairy skin drawn over a skeleton. The largest 
specimen I measured in Borneo had the follow- 
ing remarkable dimensions: head and body, 19 
inches; extent of outstretched arms and hands, 
5 feet 1 inch ; entire reach of arms and legs, 5 feet 
1 inch; hand, 6^ inches long by 1 inch wide; 
weight, 1(R pounds. 
Of Gibbons there are about six species, and they 
inhabit Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, 
Burmah and Siam. With the Gray Gibbon , 1 
of Borneo, I am well acquainted; and after the 
three great man-like apes, it is to me the most 
wonderful of anthropoids. They are very timid, 
the shyest of all Primates that I ever hunted, 
and wonderfully successful in eluding the hunter. 
Nevertheless, so strong is their affection for their 
young, I have seen a whole troop that had made 
good its escape, return at the call of an infant 
Gibbon in trouble, and all reckless of their own 
safety come down within twenty feet of their 
deadly enemy. Very few other mammals will 
do this. 
The most wonderful habit of the Gibbon is its 
flight down hill when pursued. Of course it 
never dreams of descending to the earth, but in 
the half-open hill forests of Borneo I have seen 
these creatures go downward through the tree- 
tops, in a straight course, leaping incredible dis- 
tances, catching with their hands, swinging un- 
der, catching with their feet, turning again, and 
so on by a series of revolutions, almost as fast as 
the flight of a bird. 
1 Hy-lo-ba'tes leu-cis'cus. 
