Instead of jumping from bough to bough and running
on the branches, like other apes and monkeys, the gibbons move along
while hanging suspended in the air, stretching their arms from bough to
bough, and thus going hand over hand as a very active sailor will climb
along a rope. The strength of their arms is, however, so prodigious,
and their hold so sure, that they often loose one hand before they have
caught a bough with the other, thus seeming almost to fly through the
air by a series of swinging leaps; and they travel among the network of
interlacing boughs a hundred feet above the earth with as much ease and
certainty as we walk or run upon level ground, and with even greater
speed. These little animals scarcely ever come down to the ground of
their own accord; but when obliged to do so they run along almost erect,
with their long arms swinging round and round, as if trying to find some
tree or other object to climb upon. They are the only apes who naturally
walk without using their hands as well as their feet; but this does not
make them more like men, for it is evident that the attitude is not an
easy one, and is only adopted because the arms are habitually used to
swing by, and are therefore naturally held upward, instead of downward,
as they must be when walking on them.
The tailed monkeys of Asia consist of two groups, the first of which
have no cheek pouches, but always have very long tails, They are
true forest monkeys, very active and of a shy disposition.
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