THE ORANG-OUTAN 49 



If the Mias is compelled to traverse an unwooded tract, 

 it places its knuckles upon the ground and swings its 

 body through the arms just as though they were crutches. 

 It rarely attempts to walk on its hind legs alone, unless there 

 are branches overhead to which it can cling for support. 

 Among the trees the animal is just as nimble as it is awk- 

 ward when on the ground. It can travel through the tree- 

 tops quite as quickly as a person can run beneath them. It 

 passes from branch to branch with great rapidity, and leaps 

 intervening spaces with remarkable ease considering its 

 size and weight. It enjoys a peculiar freedom of motion 

 owing to the construction of its hip joint. In man and 

 many animals the head of the thigh-bone is tied down to 

 the socket by a short and strong tendon (ligamentum teres), 

 which has to be cut before the cup and ball ends of the 

 bones can be separated. The tendon adds strength, and is 

 a security against easy dislocation. But in the Orang the 

 ligament is entirely wanting, and its hind limbs can be 

 turned in any direction with a flexibility and readiness that 

 easily makes it the acrobat of the ape family. This remark- 

 able suppleness of a large-bodied animal is exhibited in a 

 marked degree in Plate I. Fig. 2. 



Most monkeys are gregarious and delight in making 

 deafening noises. The Orang does not even form little 

 bands as do the gorillas, but mopes about upon its platform 

 in marked contrast to the restlessness of the monkey tribe 

 in general. It does not leave its bed until the sun is well 

 up, and seldom returns to the same tree even two nights 

 running. Fruit, leaves, buds, and young shoots form its 

 food, and as it usually obtains sufficient water in the hollows 

 of leaves, the animal finds but little necessity to come down 

 to the ground. 



Young monkeys of all kinds cling to their mothers even 

 when they are leaping from branch to branch. Mr. A. R. 

 Wallace, who with Rajah Brooke has afforded us our most 

 reliable knowledge of the Mias, once killed a female, which 

 was carrying a baby about a foot in length. When he went 

 to pick up the little creature it instinctively grasped his 

 beard and could not easily be made to loose its hold. 

 Eventually it transferred itself to a piece of suspended buffalo 



5 



