egaling themselves with fruit and friendly chat, while their
'children' are leaping around them, and swinging from tree to tree
with boisterous merriment.

"As seen here, they cannot be called _gregarious_, seldom more than
five, or ten at most, being found together. It has been said, on good
authority, that they occasionally assemble in large numbers, in
gambols. My informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so
engaged, hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs,
which is done in the latter case with equal facility by the four
extremities. They do not appear ever to act on the offensive, and,
seldom, if ever, really on the defensive. When about to be captured,
they resist by throwing their arms about their opponent, and
attempting to draw him into contact with their teeth."

With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is very explicit in another
place:

"_Biting_ is their principal art of defence. I have seen one man who
had been thus severely wounded in the feet.

"The strong development of the canine teeth in the adult would seem to
indicate a carnivorous propensity; but in no state save that of
domestication do they manifest it. At first they reject flesh, but
easily acquire a fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and
evidently designed to act the important part of weapons of defence.
When in contact with man almost the first effort of the animal is--_to
bite_.

"They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habitations in trees.
Their construction is more that of _nests_ than _huts_, as they have
been erroneously termed by some naturalists. They generally build not
far above the ground. Branches or twigs are bent, or partly broken,
and crossed, and the whole supported by the body of a limb or a
crotch. Sometimes a nest will be found near the _end_ of a _strong
leafy branch_ twenty or thirty feet from the ground. One I have lately
seen that could not be less than forty feet, and more probably it was
fifty. But this is an unusual height.

"Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed in pursuit of food
and solitude, according to the force of circumstances. We most often
see them in elevated places; but this arises from the fact that the
low grounds, being more favorable for the natives' rice-farms, are the
oftener cleared, and hence are almost always wanting in suitable trees
for their nests.... It is seldom that more than one or two nests are
seen upon the same tr