avoiding villages. This species is allied to the little long-armed apes
of the genus Hylobates, but is considerably larger, and differs from
them by having the two first fingers of the feet united together, nearly
to the end as does its Latin name, Siamanga syndactyla. It moves much
more slowly than the active Hylobates, keeping lower down in trees, and
not indulging in such tremendous leaps; but it is still very active,
and by means of its immense long arms, five feet six inches across in an
adult about three feet high, can swing itself along among the trees at
a great rate. I purchased a small one, which had been caught by the
natives and tied up so tightly as to hurt it. It was rather savage at
first, and tried to bite; but when we had released it and given it two
poles under the verandah to hang upon, securing it by a short cord,
running along the pole with a ring so that it could move easily, it
became more contented, and would swing itself about with great rapidity.
It ate almost any kind of fruit and rice, and I was in hopes to have
brought it to England, but it died just before I started. It took
a dislike to me at first, which I tried to get over by feeding it
constantly myself. One day, however, it bit me so sharply while giving
it food, that I lost patience and gave it rather a severe beating, which
I regretted afterwards, as from that time it disliked me more than ever.
It would allow my Malay boys to play with it, and for hours together
would swing by its arms from pole to pole and on to the rafters of the
verandah, with so much ease and rapidity, that it was a constant source
of amusement to us. When I returned to Singapore it attracted great
attention, as no one had seen a Siamang alive before, although it is not
uncommon in some parts of the Malay peninsula.
As the Orangutan is known to inhabit Sumatra, and was in fact first
discovered there, I made many inquiries about it; but none of the
natives had ever heard of such an animal, nor could I find any of the
Dutch officials who knew anything about it. We may conclude, therefore,
that it does not inhabit the great forest plains in the east of Sumatra
where one would naturally expect to find it, but is probably confined
to a limited region in the northwest part of the island entirely in
the hands of native rulers. The other great Mammalia of Sumatra, the
elephant and the rhinoceros, are more widely distributed; but the former
is much more scarce than it was a few years ago, and seems to retire
rapidly before the spread of cultivation. Lobo Kaman tusks and bones
are occasionally found about in the forest, but the living animal is now
never seen. The rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sumatranus) still abounds, and I
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