14 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE. 



approaching which he stretches out his long arms, and 

 seizing the opposing boughs, grasps them together with 

 both hands, seems to try their strength, and then deliber- 

 ately swings himself across to the next branch on which he 

 walks along as before. He never 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 strength "The Dyaks," says Mr. Wallace, "all declare 

 of the that the mias is never attacked by any animal in 



Orang-utan. ^ e forest, with two rare exceptions; and the 

 accounts received of these are so curious that I give them 

 nearly in the words of my informants, old Dyak Chiefs, who 

 had lived all their lives in the places where the animal is most 

 abundant. The first of whom I enquired said, ' No animal is 

 strong enough to hurt the mias, and the only creature he ever 

 fights with is the crocodile. When there is no fruit in the 

 jungle he goes to seek food on the banks of the river where 

 there are plenty of young shoots that he likes, and fruits that 

 grow close to the water. Then the crocodile sometimes tries 

 to seize him, but the mias gets upon him and beats him with 

 his hands and feet, and tears and kills him.' He added that he 

 had once seen such a fight and that he believed that the mias 

 is always the victor. My next informant was Orang Kayo 

 or chief of the Balow Dyaks on the Simunjou River. He 

 said the mias has no enemies, no animals dare attack it 

 but the crocodile and the python. He always kills the 

 crocodile by main strength, standing upon it, and pulling open 

 its jaws and ripping up its throat. If a python attacks a 

 mias he seizes it with his hands and then bites it, and 

 soon kills it. The mias is very strong; there is no animal 

 in the jungle so strong as he." 



The Docility Buffon thus describes an orang-utan that he 

 of the saw: "His aspect was melancholy, his de- 



Orang-u an. p Or t men t grave, his movements regular, and 



