226 ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



their offspring. The young Orangs seem to remain un- 

 usually long under their mother's protection, probably in 

 consequence of their slow growth. While climbing, the 

 mother always carries her young against her bosom, the 

 young holding on by his mother's hair.* At what time of 

 life the Orang-Utan becomes capable of propagation, and 

 how long the females go with young, is unknown, but it is 

 probable that they are not adult until they arrive at ten 

 or fifteen years of age. A female which lived for five years 

 at Batavia, had not attained one-third the height of the 

 wild females. It is probable that, after reaching adult 

 years, they go on growing, though slowly, and that they 

 live to forty or fifty years. The Dyaks tell of old Orangs, 

 which have not only lost all their teeth, but which find it 

 so troublesome to climb, that they maintain themselves on 

 windfalls and juicy herbage. 



The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that marvel- 

 lous activity characteristic of the Gibbons. Hunger alone 

 seems to stir him to exertion, and when it is stilled he 

 relapses into repose. When the animal sits, it curves its 

 back and bows its head, so as to look straight down on 

 the ground ; sometimes it holds on with its hands by a 

 higher branch, sometimes lets them hang phlegmatically 

 down by its side and in these positions the Orang will 

 remain, for hours together, in the same spot, almost with- 

 out stirring, and only now and then giving utterance to 

 its deep, growling voice. By day, he usually climbs from 

 one tree-top to another, and only at night descends to the 

 ground, and if then threatened with danger, he seeks 

 refuge among the underwood. When not hunted, he 

 remains a long time in the same locality, and sometimes 

 stops for many days on the same tree a firm place among 

 its branches serving him for a bed. It is rare for the 

 Orang to pass the night in the summit of a large tree, 

 probably because it is too windy and cold there for him ; 

 but, as soon as night draws on, he descends from the 

 height and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker 

 part, or in the leafy top of a small tree, among which he 



* See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant " Orang-utan," in the 

 Annals of Natural History for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided his 

 interesting charge with an artificial mother of buffalo-skin, but the 

 cheat was too successful. The infant's entire experience led it to 

 associate teats with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent its existence 

 in vain endeavours to discover the former. 



