that animals approaching in structure, and even in intelligence, to man
himself, must possess habits of the most singular kind. There is little
more known of them than there was hundreds of years ago--indeed, we
might say thousands of years; for it is evident that the Carthaginians
came into contact with the chimpanzee on the western coast of Africa,
and through them the Romans became acquainted with it; and no doubt it
was this animal that gave origin to most of their stories of satyrs and
wild men of the woods.

The chimpanzee is found only in the forests of tropical Africa--more
especially along the west coast, the banks of the Gaboon, and other
rivers. The ourang-outang is exclusively Asiatic--inhabiting Borneo,
Sumatra, the peninsula of Malacca, Cochin China, and several others of
the large Oriental islands. Of the ourang-outang there are two
species--perhaps three--differing very little, except in point of size
and colour.

A group of large tail-less apes, usually denominated _Gibbons_, or
Long-armed Apes, come next in order. These are neither so large nor
human-like as the ourang or the chimpanzee; nevertheless, they are
capable of walking upon their hind legs, after the manner of bipeds.
They are all long-armed apes, and generally use their fore-arms in
walking, but more to assist them in clinging to the branches of trees,
and swinging themselves from one to the other.

The gibbons are all Asiatic monkeys, and inhabit the same countries with
the ourang, viz., the tropical forests of India and the Indian
Archipelago. There are at least a dozen species of them, nearly half of
which are found in the Island of Sumatra alone.

The _Proboscis_ monkeys follow the gibbons. These are also long-armed
apes, but with tails and sharp proboscis-like snouts, from which their
name is derived. Only two species are known--both belonging to the
great Island of Borneo, so rich in varieties of these human-like
mammalia. One of the species of proboscis monkeys has also been
observed in Cochin China. Another large tribe of Asiatic apes,
containing in all nearly twenty different species, has been constituted
into a genus called _Semnopithecus_. These also inhabit the Indian
continent and the great islands; but they are not so exclusively
tropical in their habits, since several of the species extend their
range northward to Nepaul, and other districts among the Himalaya
Mountains. It is a species, or more than one, of th