“They are expert climbers, as one would suppose from their organization.  In their gambols they swing from limb to limb at a great distance, and leap with astonishing agility.  It is not unusual to see the ‘old folks’ (in the language of an observer) sitting under a tree regaling 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 tree, or in the same neighborhood:  five have been found, but it was an unusual circumstance.” ...

“They are very filthy in their habits.  It is a tradition with the natives generally here that they were once members of their own tribe; that for their depraved habits they were expelled from all human society, and that, through an obstinate indulgence of their vile propensities, they have degenerated into their present state of organization.  They are, however, eaten by them, and when cooked with the oil and pulp of the palm-nut considered a highly palatable morsel.