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Updated: June 24, 2025
In Hylobates syndactylus, as the name expresses, two of the toes regularly cohere; and this, as Mr. Blyth informs me, is occasionally the case with the toes of H. agilis, lar, and leuciscus. It deserves notice that the feet of the sloths, the most arboreal animals in the world, are wonderfully hook- like.
In regard to the general hairiness of the body, the women in all races are less hairy than the men; and in some few Quadrumana the under side of the body of the female is less hairy than that of the male. This is the case with the females of several species of Hylobates; see Geoffroy St. Hilaire and F. Cuvier, 'Hist. Nat. des Mamm. tom. i.
Suffice it to say, that the Orangs and the Gibbons constitute the distinct genera, 'Simia' and 'Hylobates'; while the Chimpanzees and Gorillas are by some regarded simply as distinct species of one genus, 'Troglodytes'; by others as distinct genera 'Troglodytes' being reserved for the Chimpanzees, and 'Gorilla' for the Enge-ena or Pongo.
With the valuable assistance of Daubenton, Buffon gave an excellent description of this creature, which, from its singular proportions, he termed the long-armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern 'Hylobates lar'.
Suffice it to say, that the Orangs and the Gibbons constitute the distinct genera, 'Simia' and 'Hylobates'; while the Chimpanzees and Gorillas are by some regarded simply as distinct species of one genus, 'Troglodytes'; by others as distinct genera 'Troglodytes' being reserved for the Chimpanzees, and 'Gorilla' for the Enge-ena or Pongo.
But when Klaatsch declares the descent of man from the apes to be "irrational, narrow-minded, and false," in the belief that we are thinking of some living species of ape, we must remind him that no competent scientist has ever held so narrow a view. The actual Hylobates is nearer to it than the other three existing anthropoids. None of these can be said to be absolutely the most man-like.
The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, but there is very good evidence that they will bite severely when irritated a female 'Hylobates agilis' having so severely lacerated one man with her long canines, that he died; while she had injured others so much that, by way of precaution, these formidable teeth had been filed down; but, if threatened, she would still turn on her keeper.
Anthony. All absurd efforts of agility which you ever saw at a seance of the Hylobates Lar Club at Cambridge are quiet and clumsy compared to the rope-dancing which goes on in the boughs of the Poui tree, or, to their great detriment, of the Bougainvillea and the Gardenia on the lawn. But with all this, Spider is the gentlest, most obedient, and most domestic of beasts.
Whether most of the foregoing monkeys have acquired their powerful voices in order to beat their rivals and charm the females or whether the vocal organs have been strengthened and enlarged through the inherited effects of long-continued use without any particular good being thus gained I will not pretend to say; but the former view, at least in the case of the Hylobates agilis, seems the most probable.
Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, Isid., on the recognition of women by male quadrumana; on monstrosities; coincidences of arrested development with polydactylism; on animal-like anomalies in the human structure; on the correlation of monstrosities; on the distribution of hair in man and monkeys; on the caudal vertebrae of monkeys; on correlated variability; on the classification of man; on the long hair on the heads of species of Semnopithecus; on the hair in monkeys; on the development of horns in female deer; and F. Cuvier, on the mandrill; on Hylobates.
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