xi] MY FIRST ORANG-UTAN 



" Tukan mas," or goldsmith of the village, came to tell me that he 

 had killed a Mayas, but the hour being late had left it in the 

 jungle. Three other Chinamen who were with him had remained 

 on the spot, partly to guard it, and partly in the hope of shooting 

 other specimens. 



The Chinese at Marop were big and strong, and excellent walkers ; 

 they had come from Sambas, and were as well acclimatised as the 

 Dyaks themselves. In the evening they used to gather round me 

 and talk for an hour or two, asking me all sorts of questions on 

 Europe and the Europeans, while some of their queries were, per- 

 haps, somewhat less ingenuous than those of the Dyaks. 



Next morning, March 27th, I finished preparing the skin of the 

 Mayas which had been brought to me on the previous day. At 

 noon they arrived with the one shot by the Tukan mas. It 

 would have made an excellent specimen had it not been spoiled by 

 the Chinaman who killed it, and who, in taking out the viscera, had 

 badly split with his parang both the sternum and the pelvis. It 

 was a male of the Mayas Kassa kind, and offered no appreciable 

 differences from the female I had prepared already. I measured it 

 carefully, with the following results : — 



Total height (vertex to soles of feet) . . . . ri7 m. 



Across the outstretched arms . . . . . 2' 10 „ 



Trunk from vertex to coccyx ...... 0*73 ,, 



Circumference of thorax below sternum (the viscera having 



been removed) ....... o'8i ,, 



I may here state that I always took the measurement of the 

 height by stretching the animal on the ground and measuring 

 the distance between the crown of the head or vertex to the under 

 surface of the heel. The exaggerated dimensions of the height of 

 orangs, given, nevertheless, by conscientious and trustworthy persons, 

 depend on having extended the latter measurement to the tips of 

 the toes. In other cases the body and limbs have been measured 

 along the curves instead of straight from point to point, which 

 naturally has increased the general dimensions. 



The Mayas Kassa, which is the more common species of orang- 

 utan here, was now becoming well known to me, for I had in my 

 possession a male and two females quite adult, besides a young one. 

 The male, as I have remarked before, differs very slightly from the 

 female. I only noticed a small difference in the teeth, which may 

 possibly have been accidental. The male has a very small gap 

 between the canines and incisors, but in the female this space is 

 more marked. 



I had heard of two other kinds of orang-utan, one called Mayas 

 Rambei, the other Mayas Tj aping. The first appeared to be only 

 slightly different from the Mayas Kassa, being described as smaller, 

 but with longer hair. The Mayas Tj aping, however, was very 



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