632 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



been suggested, she may not be a dwarf — a sort of feminine Tom Thumb among 

 orangs ; and in this, possibly is the explanation of the unusually good health 

 which she has enjoyed through a lifetime much longer than is common to her 

 species in captivity. The amount of nutrition required to simply maintain the 

 existing condition of body, would of course be less than if the processes of 

 growth were in full activity, and the assimilation of food, which is probably de- 

 fective in most caged animals, would, as has been the case here, be sufficient to 

 keep her in good condition. 



Between the orang and chimpanzee there is a marked difference in moral 

 qualities. The latter is full of life, vigor, vivacity; lively and childlike in dispo- 

 sition, enjoying life to the full, and taking interest in all that goes on about it. 

 Quite the reverse with the orang — it is slow, sluggish and calculating ; philosophi- 

 cally indifferent to everything but its immediate wants — voluptuary and stoic in 

 one — life is only for the means of living, and life itself is hardly worth the pain 

 of an exertion. It is exasperating — the apathy of the orang; for hours it will lie 

 wrapped in a blanket close to the front of the cage, lazily following with its eyes 

 the motions of any person within its range of vision, or slowly blinking at a strag- 

 gling fly upon the glass, moving — when it must move — only with the greatest de- 

 liberation. If left hanging by one hand to a rope or branch, there it will hang, 

 perhaps for several minutes, before making up its mind to take hold with the 

 other or let go altogether. Laterly the contrast in the disposition of the animals 

 has been made very striking by the presence in one cage of specimens of each 

 species. A second pair of chimpanzees, about the same size as the orang, were 

 placed with hef, and with their natural liveliness at once made overtures of ac- 

 quaintance, which were as promptly repulsed, and during the first week she suf- 

 fered so much fright and uneasiness from their perfectly good-natured attempts to 

 induce her to join in their play, that it became necessary to partition off with 

 wire screens a corner of the apartment, and there, hour after hour, while the two 

 chimpanzees are climbing, swinging and tumbling about the cage, never at rest 

 except to plan some new scheme of amusement, the orang lies flat on her back, 

 fingers and toes closely interlocked in the air, enjoying a. dolce farniente, the relish 

 of which she seems to intensify by quiet wonder at the reckless prodigality of 

 force indulged in by her neighbors. 



This stolidity is characteristic of the species in a wild state; there they live 

 mostly in the tree tops, cautiously crawling from branch to branch, testing every 

 limb before resting their weight upon it, moving only to satisfy the demands of 

 hunger, and when that stimulus to action ceases, subsiding into a half-sitting posi- 

 tion with the trunk or branch of a tree to hold up the back, head bowed on the 

 breast, hands hanging down — ^not asleep — it can be nothing but laborious thought 

 that produces such perfect bodily repose. Who can tell how deeply the medita- 

 tive orang has penetrated into the mysteries of the cosmogony of which he is a 

 part? how many systems of philosophy have dawned, after hours of reflection, 

 into his weary brain? how deeply he has pondered on the origin and destmy of 



