the whole, he was a wonderful beast to behold, and there was more about him to excite amazement than fear. His hair was smooth and glossy, and his whole appearance showed him to be in the full vigour of his youth and strength.” On the whole, the narrative seems to suggest a remark similar to one applied by Washington Irving to the followers of Ojeda and their treatment of the (so-called) Indians of South America, “we confess we feel a momentary doubt whether the arbitrary appellation of ‘brute’ is always applied to the right party.” The other story also presents man as at least as brutal as the orang concerned in the event. “A few miles down the river,” says Wallace, “there is a Dyak house, and the inhabitants saw a large orang feeding on the young shoots of a palm by the river-side. On being alarmed he retreated towards the jungle which was close by, and a number of the men, armed with spears and choppers, ran out to intercept him. The man who was in front tried to run his spear through the animal’s body; but the orang seized it in his hands, and in an instant got hold of the man’s arm, which he seized in his mouth, making his teeth meet in the flesh above the elbow, which he tore and lacerated in a dreadful manner. Had not the others been close behind, the man would have been more seriously injured, if not killed, as he was quite powerless; but they soon destroyed the creature with their spears and choppers. The man remained ill for a long time, and never fully recovered the use of his arm.” The term gibbon includes several varieties of tail-less, long-armed, catarhine apes. The largest variety, called the siamang, need alone be described here.