Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/452

436 circumstances. It is evident that much might be done with the chimpanzee to make him an agreeable companion to man. Fortunately, this hard fate may be spared to the chimpanzee, because he cannot support existence in the colder regions to which our race has become acclimated.



The negroes do not seem to court his companionship. One notable feature in the chimpanzee remains to be stated, and that is his peculiar behavior to other animals. He is perfectly contemptuous in his treatment of our small, domestic animals, such as rabbits. He is frightened at large and fierce dogs, and exhibits an extreme terror at snakes and ugly reptiles. In this latter fact we recognize a mental state which is still shared by man, suggesting the probable origin of the serpent as an embodiment of the devil in the ideas of primitive man, and which still survives among us at the present day. Another species of man-ape is the tschego (Anthropopithicus tschego), which is only known from a single living female brought to Dresden from Loango. This species seems to be but little smaller than the gorilla, intermediate in size between this and the chimpanzee. In the proportion of its parts the most notable peculiarity seems to be that the legs are longer than in the other man-apes. The behavior of the specimen in confinement did not differ greatly from that already related of the chimpanzee.

The Asiatic man-apes differ from those of Africa by the proportionally longer arms, which reach down to the ankles. The orang-outang (Simia satyrus) inhabits most commonly the island of Borneo, and has recently been collected in considerable numbers by Mr. Alfred Wallace. It has only twelve pairs of ribs, as is usual with man. The body is broad at the hips, and joined to a pyramidal-shaped head by a short neck, which is still further concealed by heavy folds of the skin, which can be puffed out by the animal when angry. The eyes and ears are