ORANG 



ORANGE 



619 



habit, and can move with considerable swiftness 

 through a forest, passing from tree to tree ; on the 

 ground it is awkward. It has a curious habit of 

 building among the branches a temporary hut 

 or nest as it is usually called. The orang was 

 formerly regarded as capable of all manner of 

 iniquities, such as carrying off women and children, 

 ami throttling people with its hind-foot as they 

 passed under the trees. When these beliefs were 

 proved to be false they were transferred to the 

 chimpanzee, and particularly to the gorilla. They 

 were mainly dispelled by Wallace, who stated, 

 however, of the orang that ' there is no animal in 

 the jungle so strong as he ;' but strength does not 

 necessarily imply ferocity, and the orang seems 

 to be a very tamable creature. 



Hornaday, an American traveller, olwerved 

 the orang in the act of making its nest. He thus 

 descrilies the process : ' I got there just in time to 

 see the orang build a large nest for himself. He 

 took up a position in a fork which was well screened 

 by the foliage, and l>egan to break off small 

 branches and pile them loosely in the crotch. There 

 was no attempt at weaving, nor even regularity in 

 anything. He reached out his long, hairy arm, 

 snapped off the leafy branches with a practised 

 hand, and laid them down with the broken ends 

 sticking out. He presently got on the pile with his 

 feet, and standing there to weight it down, he 

 turned slowly, breaking branches all the while 

 and laying them across the pile in front of him 

 until he had built quite a large nest. When he 

 ha<l finished he lay down upon it, and was go 

 effectually screened "from us that I could not dis- 

 Imlge him, and after two or three shots I told the 

 naiivi's that they would have to cut down the tree." 

 During one dav's travel in Borneo thirty-six old 

 nests and six fresh ones were seen ; there appears 

 to be nothing like house-building, which has been 

 stated by some to exist among the orangs. 



The structure of the orang shows its near rela- 

 tionship to the other anthroixiid.s and to man. 

 The curvature of the spine, wliich is an important 

 character, appears, according to Cunningham, to 

 be different from that of a full -grown man, but to 

 correspond to that of a IH>V of six years old. The 

 extension of the cerebral Hemispheres in the brain 

 backwards over the cereliellum is about equal to 

 what is found in the chimpanzee ; naturally this 

 i considerably less than in man, but greater than 

 in the new-born child. The orang comes nearest 

 among the anthropoids to man in certain other 

 characters, especially in brain characters; but, as 

 tin- gorilla and chimpanzee show a nearer approxi- 

 mation in various other points, it would not be safe 

 to e;ill the orang the most man-like of apes. See 

 A.vniiioi'oiii AI-KS. 



Orange (Lat. aurantium; from aurum, 

 'gold'), the name of one or more species of 

 films (q.v.), of which the fruit is much prized. 

 l;.it;iiiiN generally regard all the oranges as of one 

 mefat, I'itnu aurantium, but some make the 

 Sweet Oningi!, the Bitter Orange, the Bergamot 

 Orange, &c. distinct species. The wild state of 

 the orange is not certainly known, although its 

 characters may !>e pretty confidently inferred from 

 the degeneration of cultivated varieties ; and no 

 cultivated plant shows a greater liability to de- 

 generate, so that seedling oranges are almost 

 always worthless. From a remote antiquity it has 

 l>een cultivated in India ; and thence it seems to 

 have spread into western Asia and Europe. It 

 \ias l>een alleged that the orange is a native of 

 .North America, near the Gulf of Mexico; but the 

 probability rather seems to lie that it has been 

 introduced, and has become naturalised. 



The Common Orange, or Sweet Orange (Citrus 

 ), i an evergreen tree of moderate size, 



Sweet Orange ( Citrui aurantium), 

 Branch in Flower : 



o, fruit ; ft, transverse section of same. 

 ( Beutly and Triiuen.) 



with greenish-brown bark ; the leaves oblong, 

 acute, sometimes minutely serrated, the leaf-stalks 

 more or less winged, the flowers white, the fruit 

 roundish, the oil-cysts of the rind convex, the juice 

 sweet and acid. It is cultivated in almost every 

 part of the world of which the climate is warm 

 enough, but succeeds best in the warmer tem- 

 perate or subtropical climates, as in the south 

 of Europe, where it is very extensively cultivated, 

 as far north as the south of France. The orange 

 does not seem to 

 have been culti- 

 vated by the 

 Greeks or Ro- 

 mans, but was 

 probably brought 

 to Europe by the 

 Moors, and is 

 supposed to have 

 been introduced 

 into Italy so re- 

 cently as the 14th 

 century, fully 

 1000 years afte'r 

 the citron. In 

 the north of Italy 

 oranges are some- 

 times grown in 

 conservatories, 

 but often in the 

 open air, except 

 during winter, 

 when they are 

 covered with 

 temporary houses 

 of Ijoanfs. In 

 the south of Eng- 

 land they are 

 sometimes in like 

 manner grown in the open air, with a shelter of 

 boards or matting in winter, but trained against 

 a south wall ; they attain a large size, and yield 

 good fruit. The abundant importation of the 

 fruit, however, renders the cultivation of the 

 orange in Britain unnecessary ; and, in general, 

 only small plants are to be seen in greenhouses 

 or conservatories, as mere objects of interest. 

 In some parts of Queensland and south-west 

 Australia the orange is grown to great perfection, 

 but its culture does not appear to he regarded as a 

 profitable industry probably owing to the absence 

 of markets and the facilities of conveyance thereto. 

 A few counties in the colony of New South Wales 

 appear to be particularly well adapted to orange 

 cultivation. A government report on the area 

 under orangeries gives it as 10,857 acres in 1889. 

 Excellent oranges have been exported from the 

 colony to Britain at remunerative rates. There are 

 many varieties in cultivation, which are perpetu- 

 ated by grafting upon seedling orange stocks and 

 by layers. The principal .orange-growing sections 

 of the United States are Florida, Louisiana, and 

 California. 



Of the varieties of the sweet orange perhaps 

 the most deserving of notice are the Portugal or 

 Lisbon Orange, the most common of all, having 

 the fruit generally round or nearly so, and a thick 

 rind ; the China Orange, said to have been brought 

 by the Portuguese from China, and now much 

 cultivated in the south of Europe, having a smooth 

 thin rind and very abundant juice ; the Maltese or 

 Blood Orange, remarkable for the blood-red colour 

 of its pulp ; the Egg Orange, having fruit of an 

 oval shape ; the Mandarin Orange, or Clove Orange 

 (C. nobilis), has fruit much broader than long, 

 with a rind very loosely attached to the flesh, and 

 small leaves; and the Tangerine Orange, apparently 

 derived from the Mandarin. The St Michael's 



