70 Borneo — The Okang-Utan. 



jumps or springs, or even appears to hurry himself, and yet 

 manages to get along almost as quickly as a person can run 

 through the forest beneath. The long and powerful arms 

 are of the greatest use to the animal, enabling it to climb 

 easily up the loftiest trees, to seize fruits and. young leaves 

 from slender boughs which will not bear its weight, and to 

 gather leaves and branches with which to form its nest. I 

 have already described how it forms a nest when wounded, 

 but it uses a similar one to sleep on almost every night. 

 This is placed low down, however, on a small tree not more 

 than from twenty to fifty feet from the ground, probably be- 

 cause it is warmer and less exposed, to wind than higher up. 

 Each mias is said to make a fresh one for himself every night ; 

 but I should think that is hardly probable, or their remains 

 would be much more abundant ; for though I saw several 

 about the coal-mines, there must have been many orangs 

 about every day, and in a year their deserted nests would 

 become very numerous. The Dyaks say that, when it is 

 very wet, the mias covers himself over with leaves of pan- 

 danus, or large ferns, which has perhaj^s led to the story of 

 his making a hut in the trees. 



The orang does not leave his bed till the sun has well 

 risen and has dried up the dew upon the leaves. He feeds 

 all through the middle of the day, but seldom returns to the 

 same tree two days running. They do not seem much alarmed 

 at man, as they often stared down upon me for several 

 minutes, and then only moved away slowly to an adjacent 

 tree. After seeing one, I have often had to go half a mile 

 or more to fetch my gun, and in nearly every case have 

 found it on the same tree, or within a hundred yards, when 

 I returned. I never saw two full-grown animals together, 

 but both males and females are sometimes accompanied by 

 half-grown young ones, while at other times three or four 

 young ones were seen in company. Their food consists al- 

 most exclusively of fruit, with occasionally leaves, buds, and 

 yoimg shoots. They seem to prefer unripe fruits, some of 

 which were very sour, others intensely bitter, particularly 

 the large, red, fleshy arillus of one which seemed an especial 

 favorite. In other cases they eat only the small seed of a large 

 fruit, and they almost always waste and destroy more than 



