gentle and caressing way in which it clasps me round the neck with its long arms, laying its head on my chest, and watching my face with its dark brown eyes, uttering a satisfied crooning sound, is most engaging. Although it often inflates its laryngeal sac, it rarely gives utterance to more than a yawn-like noise or suppressed bark; but this dilatation has no reference apparently to its good or bad temper, although, when very eager and {169}impatient for anything, a low pumping bark is uttered. Every evening it makes with me a tour round the village square, with one of its hands on my arm. It is a very curious and ludicrous sight to see it in the erect attitude on its somewhat bandy legs, hurrying along in the most frantic haste, as if to keep its head from outrunning its feet, with its long free arm see-sawing in a most odd way over its head to balance itself, and now and again touching the ground with its finger-tips or its knuckles. That they can leap the great distances from tree to tree ascribed to them is no doubt an accurate observation; but they appear to be sometimes terror-stricken and unable to perform these feats to save their lives. During the felling of the forest near this village, a small colony of Siamangs got isolated on a tree separated from the next clump by some thirty feet or so. They scampered up and down in the crown of the tree howling in the most abject terror at every stroke of the axe; yet they would not venture to leap the intervening space, and even, when the tree was falling, they did not attempt to save themselves by springing to the ground, but perished in its downfall. "When teething my companion suffered severely--as the human infant so often does--both locally and constitutionally, as indicated by boils and inflamed finger-tips. On lancing and poulticing the latter, and extracting some of its obstructing teeth, the poor creature seemed greatly relieved, and I was delighted to watch it recover, without contracting for me any antipathy for the pain I had inflicted on it, but rather the reverse." At a later date the following extract occurs:-- "During my march to the coast my Siamang accompanied me, occupying, with the most grave demeanour, a seat on one of the packages carried in the rear, near to myself. Here it {170}sheltered its head, to the amusement of all whom we met, under a Chinese umbrella, which I had bought for it to protect it from the midday sun, and for which, after every halt, it held out its hands in the most knowing way, screaming lustily if the porters dared to move on before it had comfortably arranged itself. To my intense regret, a misadventure put an end to a most charming existence, before I could send it to London." THE ORANG-UTANS. GENUS SIMIA. _Simia_, Linn., Syst. Nat., i., p. 34 (1766); Erxl., Syst. Régne An., p. 6 (1777; part). _Pithecus_, Geoffr., Ann. Mus., xix., p. 87 (1812); Huxley, Anat. Verteb. An., p. 403. _Pongo_, Geoffr., Ann. Mus., xix., p. 89 (1812).