. Evidence as to man's place in nature . t byadditional testimony from instructed European eye-witnesses. It will therefore be convenient in endeavouring to form anotion of what we are justified in believing about these ani-mals, to commence with the best known man-like Apes, theGibbons and Orangs; and to make use of the perfectly reli-able information respecting them as a sort of criterion of theprobable truth or falsehood of assertions respecting the others. Of the Gibbons, half a dozen species are found scatteredover the Asiatic islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and throughMalacca, Siam, Arra
. Evidence as to man's place in nature . t byadditional testimony from instructed European eye-witnesses. It will therefore be convenient in endeavouring to form anotion of what we are justified in believing about these ani-mals, to commence with the best known man-like Apes, theGibbons and Orangs; and to make use of the perfectly reli-able information respecting them as a sort of criterion of theprobable truth or falsehood of assertions respecting the others. Of the Gibbons, half a dozen species are found scatteredover the Asiatic islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and throughMalacca, Siam, Arracan, and an uncertain extent of Hin-dostan, on the main land of Asia. The largest attain a fewinches above three feet in height, from the crown to the heel,so that they are shorter than the other man-like Apes; whilethe slenderness of their bodies renders their mass far smallerin proportion even to this diminished height. 26 Dr. Salomon Miiller, an accomplished Dutch naturalist,who lived for many years in the Eastern Archipelago, and to. Fig. 8.—A Gibbon {H. jnleatus), after Wolf. the results of whose personal experience I shall frequentlyhave occasion to refer, states that the Gibbons are truemountaineers, loving the slopes and edges of the liills, 27 though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of the day long they haunt the tops of the tall trees; andthough, towards evening, they descend in small troops tothe open ground, no sooner do they spy a man than theydart up the hill-sides, and disappear in the darker valleys. All observers testify to the prodigious volume of voice pos-sessed by these animals. According to the writer whom Ihave just cited, in one of them, the Siamang, the voice isgrave and penetrating, resembling the sounds goek, goek,goek, goek, goek ha ha ha ha haaaaa, and may easily be heardat a distance of half a league. While the cry is being uttered,the great membranous bag under the throat which commu-nicates with the organ of voice, the so-calle
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