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Watchmakers, short-sighted. Waterhen. Waterhouse, C.O., on blind beetles; on difference of colour in the sexes of beetles. Waterhouse, G.R., on the voice of Hylobates agilis. Water-ouzel, autumn song of the. Waterton, C., on the Bell-bird; on the pairing of a Canada goose with a Bernicle gander; on hares fighting. Wattles, disadvantageous to male birds in fighting.
Turning to the Old World, the males of Hylobates hoolock are always black, with the exception of a white band over the brows; the females vary from whity-brown to a dark tint mixed with black, but are never wholly black. On Mycetes, Rengger, ibid. s. 14; and Brehm, 'Thierleben, B. i. s. 96, 107. On Ateles Desmarest, 'Mammalogie, p. 75. On Hylobates, Blyth, 'Land and Water, 1867, p. 135.
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.
It moves much more slowly than the active Hylobates, keeping lower down in trees, and not indulging in such tremendous leaps; but it is still very active, and by means of its immense long arms, five feet six inches across in an adult about three feet high, can swing itself along among the trees at a great rate.
George Bennett, a very excellent observer, in describing the habits of a male 'Hylobates syndactylus' which remained for some time in his possession, says: "He invariably walks in the erect posture when on a level surface; and then the arms either hang down, enabling him to assist himself with his knuckles; or what is more usual, he keeps his arms uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb up on the approach of danger or on the obtrusion of strangers.
And if, instead of putting Hapale out of its natural place, as Professor Bischoff most unaccountably does, we write the series of animals he has chosen to mention as follows: Homo, Pithecus, Troglodytes, Hylobates, Semnopithecus, Cynocephalus, Cercopithecus, Macacus, Cebus, Callithrix, Hapale, Lemur, Stenops, I venture to reaffirm that the great break in this series lies between Hapale and Lemur, and that this break is considerably greater than that between any other two terms of that series.
It is well known that the hair on our arms tends to converge from above and below to a point at the elbow. This curious arrangement, so unlike that in most of the lower mammals, is common to the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, some species of Hylobates, and even to some few American monkeys.
Then in sudden silence there would be a tremor of the branches, splash after splash of leaves, and the herd would swing away through the trackless tree tops. The gibbons are well named Hylobates or "tree-walkers" for they are entirely arboreal and, although awkward and almost helpless on the ground, once their long thin hands touch a branch they become transformed as by a miracle.
But in Hylobates agilis the hair on the fore-arm is directed downwards or towards the wrist in the ordinary manner; and in H. lar it is nearly erect, with only a very slight forward inclination; so that in this latter species it is in a transitional state.
The American Mycetes caraya perhaps forms an exception, as does the Hylobates agilis, an ape allied to man. This gibbon has an extremely loud but musical voice. Mr. Given in W.C.L. Martin's 'General Introduction to Natural History of Mamm.
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