RED ANTHROPOID APES. 



37 



in itself indicates (a mias of 4 feet 5 inches 

 spanned with outstretched arms and hands a 

 length of 7 feet 10^ inches), this ape is an 

 arboreal climber in a much greater measure 

 than his African kindred, and in this respect, 

 as in many other anatomical characters, re- 

 sembles the gibbons, which like him belong 

 to the East Indies. The skull in the young 

 and the female is round, but at the same time 

 furnished with powerful jaws, which even in 

 the young protrude much more than in the 

 African apes, and with their covering of thin 

 but wide lips have almost the appearance of 

 a kettle-drum seen from below. The orbital 

 and cranial ridges even in old males are less 

 prominent than in the chimpanzee, and still 

 less so than in the gorilla. On the other 

 hand two half-moonshaped projecting cheek- 

 swellings (absent in the female) give to the 

 adult male a very hideous aspect, reminding 

 one of the baboons, and this hideousness is 

 intensified by the fact that the creature has a 

 pouch in the throat capable of being dilated 

 with air at pleasure, and when so dilated 

 resembling a crop. The arms, which are 

 thin, especially the lower parts, and covered 

 with long bristly hairs, are so long that when 

 the creature stands upright with bent fingers 

 the knuckles touch the ground. The hands 

 have rather long fingers and the feet long 

 toes, and both are narrow. The thumb is 

 pretty strong. The wrist has one bone more 

 than in man. The abdomen is thick and 

 protruding; the legs are short and thin. The 

 face, hands, and feet are naked, slate-gray in 

 colour, the long hair of a dark rusty red, but 

 brighter in the young. In old males the 

 canines are extremely prominent. 



The adult orang-utang, when he has set 

 himself to rights on a tree with his young 

 one, which in Plate III. is represented as 

 doing the kindly office of hunting for insects 

 on his parent, is described in the most trust- 

 worthy accounts of travellers as a good- 

 humoured and well-disposed creature, gener- 

 ally to be seen swinging itself by means of its 



long arms with much deliberation from branch 

 to branch, and after careful trial from tree to 

 tree, descending to the ground only when 

 forced to do so by the most urgent need of 

 water. It breaks off twigs and small branches 

 to make sleeping-places for itself on high 

 trees, and is said to employ large leaves to 

 protect itself against rain. It lives chiefly on 

 fruits, which it opens with great dexterity. 

 According to the reports of the natives the 

 orang has to fight against only crocodiles and 

 large serpents, and these contests mostly end 

 in leaving it victorious. It does not fear 

 man, but when attacked defends itself cour- 

 ageously with hands and teeth. An orang, 

 which had got its arm smashed by a shot, 

 climbed up a high tree with great agility, and 

 with its uninjured arm broke off a number of 

 branches with their leaves on, with which it 

 quickly made a scaffolding on which it 

 screened itself completely from the eyes of 

 its pursuers. An infant orang, still without 

 teeth, which Wallace found on the breast of 

 its mother, who had been killed, was quite as 

 helpless as a human child would have been, 

 eagerly clutched him in order to suck, and 

 cried like a child when it had dirtied itself. 

 At the end of a month it cut its first two in- 

 cisors, and made its first attempts at walking. 

 Young specimens of this ape have often been 

 brought to Europe and tamed. They are 

 easily trained to cleanliness, are obedient, 

 grave-looking, almost melancholy (partly per- 

 haps in consequence of the cold), cover them- 

 selves up in bed, climb with great facility, are 

 quite as expert in gymnastic exercises as their 

 African cousins and as much afraid of reptiles, 

 are fond of intoxicating drinks, extremely 

 attached to their keepers, but far less attentive 

 and less easily excited than the African apes. 

 That they are not wanting in reflection is 

 shown by the well vouched-for case in which 

 an ape of this kind, after it had seen the lock 

 of its chain opened with a key, carefully 

 examined the lock and tried to open it by 

 means of a piece of wood which it turned 



