34 
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 marvellous 
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 posi- 
tions the Orang will remain, for hours together, in the same 
spot, almost without 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 
* 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 téats with hair, and feeling the 
latter, it spent its existence in vain endeavours to discover the former. 
