THE ORANG-UTANS. I 77 



swings himself forward on them. On the ground the Orang 

 does not move, according to Sir James Brooke, so fast as to 

 preclude a man keeping up with him easily through a clear 

 forest. ''The very long arms, which, when he runs, are but 

 little bent, raise the body of the Orang remarkably, so that he 

 assumes much the posture of a very old man bent down by 

 age,and making his way along by the help of a stick." {Huxley.) 

 The Orang, however, rarely comes to the ground of his own 

 accord. 



Mr. Martin gives the following account of a specimen which 

 lived in the Zoological Gardens in London many years ago : — 

 " Its attitudes were as varied as can be imagined, its actions 

 slow and deliberate; excepting, indeed, on one or two oc- 

 casions when it wished to follow its keeper, who had opened 

 Uie door of its cage ; even then it did not bound from branch 

 to branch like a Monkey, but stretching out its arms, and 

 grasping the branches within its reach, it swung itself onward, 

 and so descended to the floor, along which it hobbled 

 awkwardly and unsteadily. One thing, as respects both the 

 hands and feet of this Orang, could not be overlooked; 

 namely, that their mode of application to the branches, during 

 the arboreal evolutions of the animal, was hook-like ; and, from 

 the power of the adductor muscles of the thumb, and flexor 

 muscles of the fingers, tenacious and enduring, rather than 

 tight and fixed. This observation is especially applicable to 

 the feet ; in these the shortness of the thumb, though capable 

 in itself of firm and close application, renders it rather a ful- 

 crum, against which the long fingers oppose their stress, than, 

 by folding upon them, an adjunct to them in the act of pre- 

 hension; and hence, though admirably fitted for the move- 

 ments of the animal among the trees of the forest, and the kind 

 3 — V. 2 N 



