A Hand-book to the Primates, Volume 2 (of 2)Forbes, Henry O. (Henry Ogg)
Science
A Hand-book to the Primates, Volume 2 (of 2)
Forbes, Henry O. (Henry Ogg)
Primates
Mr. Martin gives the following account of a specimen which lived in the
Zoological Gardens in London many years ago:--"Its attitudes were as varied
as can be imagined, its actions slow and deliberate; excepting, indeed, on
one or two occasions when it wished to follow its keeper, who had opened
the door of its cage; even then it did not bound from branch to branch like
a Monkey, but stretching out its arms, and grasping the branches within its
reach, it swung itself onward, and so descended to the floor, along which
it hobbled awkwardly and unsteadily. One thing, as respects both the hands
and feet of this Orang, could not be overlooked; namely, that their mode of
application to the branches, during the arboreal evolutions of the animal,
was hook-like; and, from the power of the adductor muscles of the thumb,
and flexor muscles of the fingers, tenacious and enduring, rather than
tight and fixed. This observation is especially applicable to the feet; in
these the shortness of the thumb, though capable in itself of firm and
close application, renders it rather a fulcrum, against which the long
fingers oppose their stress, than, by folding upon them, an adjunct to them
in the act of prehension; and hence, though admirably fitted for the
movements of the animal among the trees of the forest, and the kind {178}of
hold necessary for freedom and security, the foot of the Orang is, perhaps,
less energetic in the grasp than that of the semi-arboreal Chimpanzee, in
which the hind-thumb is proportionately longer, and the foot broader, than
in the Orang."
The Orang drinks by dipping its fingers into the water, as the Siamang
does, and sucking the water off its knuckles, or dropping it into its
protruded trough-like lower lip.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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