TEE WOO TEE APE, OR YUEN. 
79 
SKULL OF HOOLOOK. 
THE HOOLOOK * 
Naturalists have ransacked nearly every part of the globe for interesting animals, and have pro- 
cured them from very out-of-the-way places. One of these localities was particularly difficult to get at 
years ago, for it is in the hills, far away to the north-east of Calcutta; on the other side of the great 
river Brahmapootra, in Assam. Amongst the Garrow and Cossyah kills* where there are wild gorges, 
and uplands crowded with vast forests, overlooking the wide plains of the river-valley, there were 
many wonderfully active Gibbons. About two feet in length, they were capable of swinging with 
unerring certainty from branch to branch, many feet apart ; 
and even the females performed these constant and natural 
movements while their young were hanging to them. 
They were black in colour, with white eyebrows, or, rather, 
n white band across the forehead. When caught, they soon 
became tamed, especially when young, and were docile 
and affectionate. One which was kept by Dr. Burrough 
was two feet six inches in length, yet the fore-limb was 
only five inches shorter than this, the length of the hand 
itself being six inches. 
So great was the disproportion of the legs and arms, 
that the first were, including the feet, only nineteen inches 
long, and the fingers touched the ground readily when he _^jj 
was standing erect. This Hoolook was of a deep black 
colour, and he had the usual simple band of white across 
the forehead, and black hands and feet. He was caught in 
the usual haunt of this species, not on the upper, but 
on the lower hills, which do not reach a greater altitude 
than 500 feet, and being well treated, he was easily tamed, and his habits were capable of being 
well watched. He liked the fruit of the pecpul-tree better than anything, and bananas ; but he took 
to rice and milk, and enjoyed snapping up a sweet or two, and especially delighted in Spiders. Meat 
he cared little about, and pork and beef he detested, but he liked fish occasionally. After about a 
month’s captivity he took a great fancy to his master, and would come to Ids call, and sit up to break- 
fast. He liked to help himself to chicken and egg, and at first was very bad in his manners, dipping 
his fingers into the coffee and milk, and then sucking them. Afterwards he was taught to hold a cup 
and to drink from it. 
He would walk erect slowly, first on one foot and then on the other, and would put his long arms 
over his head to balance his body, as it swayed first on one side and then on the other as his pace 
increased; then he began to run, and at last, grasping a bough, would swing himself forwards first with 
one hand and then with the other, getting over twenty to thirty paces with the greatest case and 
regularity. He was timid, very reluctant to oppose those who teased him, and usually retreated at 
once. His master used to brush his skin for him when he was out of sorts, and the sensation appears 
to have been most pleasurable, and he evidently enjoyed the gentle friction very much. Falling ill he 
had a dose of calomel and a warm bath, the latter remedy being much more to his taste than the other. 
The skull in the Hoolook has less breadth across the orbits than in the Lar; and in that of a 
young one the sutures or joinings of the skull-bones are distinct, showing that the side-bones (parietal) 
of the head unite with the front (frontals), the temporal or ear-bones, and with a part of a wing-sha ped 
bone which forms part of the base of the skull (sphenoid bone). The angle of the jaw projects back- 
wards, and it is slightly turned in ; moreover, the projections or cusps of the lower back teeth are 
five in number, and are prominent-looking and very sharp, as if they could crush a beetle as well as 
crack a nut. 
THE WOO YEN APE, OR YUEN.f 
A number of Apes were found in company on a small island near Camboja, and at first sight they 
appeared to be of different kinds, although they all had the long arms and the general appearance of 
* Hylobates hoolook . + Hylobates pileatus, 
