30 MAMMALS

They inhabit the Malay Peninsula and its neighbour-
hood, and though in some respects very like man in
structure, they are in others rather closely allied to
the baboons. Their generic name, /7ylobates, means
‘tree-traveller,’ and in habits they are essentially
arboreal, living in large companies among the
branches, swinging through wonderful distances, and
indulging in loud and almost musical cries as they
leap along. ‘Among the branches, says the Rev.
J. G. Wood, ‘it would be as easy to catch a swallow
on the wing as the gibbon. The cry of the agile
gibbon is a very remarkable one, consisting of the
chromatic scale very rapidly rendered, and concluded
by a couple of barks, one an octave below the other.
One of these creatures, which was kept tame for
some time, was placed in a large room in which
branches were fixed at some distance from each other,
so as to represent the boughs of a tree. Eighteen
feet was the longest space between the branches,
and through this space she would launch herself,
uttering her chromatic cry, and catching, while in
mid-air, fruit or cake that was thrown to her.” One
of the gibbons at the Calcutta Zoological Gardens,
a hoolock, was in the habit of catching birds on the
wing that flew into his cage. There are several
species of gibbon, the best known being the siamang,
the lar or white-handed gibbon, the hoolock, with
the white frontal band, which is the only species
occurring in India, the agile gibbon, and the silver
gibbon. They have all been kept in confinement,
and many stories are told of their affectionate dis-
position. ‘I keep in my garden,’ says one writer, ‘a