250 ANTHROPOID APES. 



the case with other apes. In climbing he alter- 

 nately uses one hand and one foot, or else, as soon 

 as he has taken a firm hold with his hands, he draws 

 up both feet together. In his passage from one 

 tree to another, he alwa)'s looks out for a place 

 where two branches come close together, or inter- 

 twine. Even when hotly pursued, he. displays 

 wonderful caution, trying the strength of the 

 branches, and pressing them down by the weight of 

 his body, so as to make a bridge from tree to tree. 

 On this point the accounts of the Dutch naturalists 

 essentially agree with those of Wallace. 



There is an eager search for these apes in their 

 native place. Bock states the Malays of Samarinda, 

 in the south-east of Borneo, capture them near the 

 small brooks and streams which flow into the 

 Mahakkam close to that town. These animals come 

 down to the river-bank in the early morning and 

 return in the course of the day to the thicket. 

 When the natives take an orang alive, they sell him 

 for three dollars to the Chinese, who at first feed 

 the animal on fruit, and afterwards on rice, but are 

 never able to keep him alive for any time in 

 captivity.* 



Although, in the ordinary course of his existence, 

 the orang shows himself to be melancholy, slothful, 

 and indifferent, yet in moments of danger he becomes 

 angry and able to defend himself. When pursued, 

 he is said to pelt his aggressors with broken branches, 

 and the thick, thorny outer husks of the dnrian fruit. 

 This is the more probable since the Tscheladas 



• Unisr den KanniboL^n auf Borneo, p. 31. 



