TEE SCAFFOLDING LEFT IN THE BODY. 81 



and no cry uttered until the grasp begins to give 

 way." ^ 



Place side by side with this the following account, 

 which Mr. Wallace gives us in his Malay Archipelago^ 

 of a baby Orang-outang, whose mother he happened 

 to shoot : 



" This little creature was only about a foot long, 

 and had, evidently been hanging to its mother when 

 she first fell. Luckily it did not appear to have been 

 wounded, and after we had cleaned the mud out of its 

 mouth it began to cry out, and seemed quite strong 

 and active. While carrying it home it got its hands 

 in my beard, and grasped so tightly that I had great 

 difficulty in getting free, for the fingers are habitually 

 bent inward at the last joint so as to form complete 

 hooks. For the first few days it clung desperately 

 with all four hands to whatever it could lay hold of, 

 and I had to be careful to keep my beard out of its 

 way, as its fingers clutched hold of hair more tena- 

 ciously than anything else, and it was impossible to 

 free myself without assistance. When restless, it 

 would struggle about Avith its hands up in the air try- 

 ing to find something to take hold of, and when it had 

 got a bit of stick or rag in two or three of its hands, 

 seemed quite happy. For want of something else, it 

 would often seize its own feet, and after a time it 

 would constantly cross its arms and grasp with each 

 hand the long hair that grew just below the opposite 

 shoulder. The great tenacity of its grasp soon dimin- 

 ished, and I was obliged to invent some means to give 

 it exercise and strengthen its limbs. For this purpose 



^Nineteenth Century, November, 1891. 



