THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
their hooklike hands a limb or a bunch of twig ends, swing 
underneath to the next hold, and so on at great speed, as an 
athlete travels hand over hand beneath a tight rope. Usually 
they go singly; or a female may be accompanied by an infant, 
which clings astride her waist, and also, perhaps, by an older 
offspring, for the young stay with their mother until two years 
old, and do not mature until twelve or fourteen. At dusk each 
old one weaves together broken branches into a sleeping-plat- 
form, making a sat- 
isfactory couch in 
two or three min- 
utes, usually not 
above twenty-five 
feet from the 
ground. Such nests 
are found so numer- 
ously that probably 
a fresh one is built 
every night; and 
Hornaday describes 
the animal as sleep- 
ing on its back, with 
one or more hands 
hooked around an 
adjacent branch. 
Captive orang- 
utans always grasp the head of the bed or the bars of the cage 
when asleep, even though lying on the floor. 
“The orang-utan,” says Forbes, ‘‘is of a very shy and un- 
certain disposition; if captured when full grown it is wild and 
ferocious; when young it is easily trained, but never lives 
in captivity to attain maturity. When attacked and hard- 
driven by human enemies, and it gets to close quarters with 
them, it can be a formidable and dangerous antagonist, and has 
18 
Copyrnyht, NY. Zoél Society. Sanborn, Phot. 
YOUNG ORANG-UTAN ‘ DOHONG.” 
