The gibbons were exceedingly difficult to kill and would never drop until stone dead.  Once I shot an old male with my 6-1/2 mm.  Mannlicher rifle at about one hundred yards and, even though the ball had gone clear through his body, he hung for several minutes before he dropped into a tangle of vines.

It was fifteen minutes before we were able to work our way through the jungle to the spot where the animal had fallen, and we had been searching for nearly half an hour when suddenly my wife shouted that a monkey was running along a branch above our heads.  I fired with the shotgun at a mass of moving leaves and killed a second gibbon which had been hiding in the thick foliage.  Instead of running the animals would sometimes disappear as completely as though they had vanished in the air.  After being fooled several times we learned to conceal ourselves in the bushes where we could watch the trees, and sooner or later the monkeys would try to steal away.

The langurs and baboons were by no means as wild as the gibbons and were found in larger herds.  Some of the langurs were carrying babies which clung to their mothers between the fore legs and did not seem to impede them in the slightest on their leaps through the tree tops.

The young of this species are bright orange-red and strangely unlike the gray adults.  As they grow older the red hair is gradually replaced by gray, but the tail is the last part of the body to change.  Heller captured one of the tiny red monkeys and brought it back to camp in his coat pocket.  The little fellow was only a few days old, and of course, absolutely helpless.

When it was wrapped in cotton with only its queer little wizened face and blue eyes visible it had a startling resemblance to a human baby until its long tail would suddenly flop into sight and dispel the illusion.  It lived only four days in spite of constant care.

There are fifty-five species of langurs (Pygathrix) all of which are confined to the Orient.  In some parts of India the animals are sacred and climb about the houses or wander in the streets of villages quite without fear.  At times they do so much damage to crops that the natives who do not dare to kill the animals themselves implore foreigners to do so.  The langurs are not confined to the tropics, but in the Tibetan mountains range far up into the snow and enjoy the cold weather.  In the market at Li-chiang we saw several skins of these animals which had been brought down by the Tibetans; the hair was long and silky and was used by the Chinese for rugs and coats.

The species which we killed at the Nam-ting River camp, like all others of the genus Pygathrix, was interesting because of the long hairs of the head which form a distinct ridge on the occiput.  We never heard the animals utter sounds, but it is said that the common Indian langur, Pygathrix entellus, gives a loud whoop as it runs through the tree tops.  Often when a tiger is prowling about the jungle the Indian langurs will follow the beast, keeping in the branches just above its head and scolding loudly.