FACTS ABOUT THE ORANG-UTAN. 403 



not yet left his mother's side to shift for himself. The female 

 orang has but one young at a birth, and from the instance just 

 cited, I infer that it does not leave its mother until nearly two 

 years of age, by which time it is fairly supplanted by a successor. 



The size of the young of the orang at birth is quite remarkable, 

 considering the small stature of the adult female. My twenty- 

 eighth specimen was a gravid female 3 feet 8f inches in height, 

 carrying a foetus which weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces, and was, of 

 course, fully developed. 



The nest of the orang-utan has already been described. He 

 usually selects a small tree, a sapling in fact, and builds his nest in 

 its top, even though his weight causes it to sway alarmingly. He 

 always builds his nest low down, often within twenty-five feet of 

 the ground, and seldom higher than forty feet. Sometimes it is 

 fully four feet in diameter, but usually not more than three, and 

 quite flat on the top. There is no weaving together of branches, 

 for they are merely piled cross-wise as a natural consequence of 

 their being broken off on different sides of the nest. In short, the 

 orang builds a nest precisely as a man would build one for himself 

 •were he obliged to pass a night in a tree-top with neither axe nor 

 knife to cut branches. I have seen in the forest one or two such 

 nests of men where the builder had only his bare hands to work 

 with, and they were just as rudely constructed, of just such mate- 

 rials, and in about the same general position, as the average orang 

 nest. 



Dui'ing one day's travel along the upper Simujan River we 

 counted thirty-six old nests and six which we set down as new or 

 fresh. I have never been able to ascertain to a certainty, but it is 

 my opinion that an orang, after building a nest, sleeps in it several 

 nights in succession, unless he is called upon to leave its neighbor- 

 hood altogether. Certain it is that whenever a hunter finds a per- 

 fectly fresh nest he may with confidence expect to find the builder 

 somewhere near it. An orang never uses a nest after the leaves 

 become withered and dry, no doubt for the reason that the bare 

 branches afford an uncomfortable resting-place. I never saw nor 

 heard of any house-building by orang-utans, though I am led to 

 beUeve that some individuals may have a habit of covering their 

 bodies with branches for protection against the dashing of the 

 rain-drops during a heavy storm. My little pet orang would in- 

 variably cover his head and body with straw or loose clothing the 

 moment it began to rain, even though he was under a roof. 



