The pithecos, or pigmy, has no tail; his canine teeth are not proportionably larger than those of man; his face is flat, as are likewise his nails, which are rounded at the top like those of the human species; he walks erect, is about a foot and a half high, and of a gentle and tractable disposition. The ancients assert that the female is subject to a periodical emanation, and analogy leaves us no reason to doubt the fact. THE GIBBON,[P] OR LONG-ARMED APE. [Footnote P: _Gibbon_ is the name by which Mr. Dupleix sent us this animal from the East Indies. I thought at first that this was an Indian word, but in looking over the nomenclature of the monkey tribe, I found in a note of Dalechamp's upon Pliny, that Strabo has described the cephus by the word _Keipon_, from which, probably, _Guibon_, _Gibbon_, is derived. The passage of Pliny, with Dalechamp's note, is as follows: "Pompeii magni, primum ludi ostenderunt ex Ethiopia, quas vocant _cephos_[Q] quadem pedes posteriores pedibus humanis & cruribus, priores manibus fuere similes; hoc animal postea Roma non vidit."] [Footnote Q: Cephos, _Strabo, lib._ xv. Keipon _vocat esseque tradit facie satyro similem_. Dal. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. viii. cap. 19. Nota. _The_ cebus _of the Greeks, the_ cephos _of Pliny, which is pronounced_ kebus _and_ kephus, _might very possibly take its origin from_ koph, _or_ kophin, _which is the name of an ape in the Hebrew and Chaldean_.] The Gibbon (_fig. 196._) always keeps itself erect, even when it walks on all four feet, its arms being as long as both its body and legs. We have seen one of these animals alive; it was but young, and not more than three feet high; we may therefore presume, that it had not attained its full size, and that when in a free state, it may grow to four feet. It has no appearance of any tail, and the character which evidently distinguishes it from all other apes, is the extraordinary length of its arms. It had a circle of white hair all round the face, which gave it a very remarkable appearance: its eyes are large but sunk deep in the head; its face is flat nearly resembling that of a man, and of a tawny colour, and its ears, though well proportioned, are naked. This animal, next to the orang-outang and the pithecos, would approach the nearest to the human form, were it not deformed by the excessive length of its arms: for man in a state of nature would have a strange appearance; his hair and beard, if they were neglected, would encircle his visage not unlike that which surrounds the face of the gibbon.