SEA TRAGEDY; OF THE JUNGLE FOLK 131 
ing from forty to sixty, and the largest and most 
powerful is chief. They make their homes on plat- 
forms by breaking off limbs and putting them criss- 
cross. In mating season the male and female live 
together, but the couples separate after the young 
are born. The mother takes care of them and the 
father goes off about his business. 
As they do in the case of most dangerous ani- 
mals, the native collectors hunt orang-outangs by 
killing the mother and taking the young. The 
weapon they most often use, except when they have 
guns, is the blow-pipe, which, in the hands of an 
expert, is not to be despised. It is a long, slender 
tube, measuring from six to eight feet, made from 
a single joint of arare bamboo. The tube is allowed 
to dry and harden and is wrapped tightly with rat- 
tan. The darts, which are about the size of a steel 
knitting-needle, are made from the midribs of palm- 
leaves, and at one end there is a small conical butt, 
which fits tightly into the bore of the pipe. A small 
nick is made in the shaft of the dart just below 
the point, and the end is coated with a deadly poison 
made from the sap of the upas-tree and another 
species of the genus /po. When the dart strikes, 
the end breaks off and remains in the wound; the 
poison acts rapidly, first paralyzing, then killing 
the victim. In warfare, also, the natives poison 
kris and spear, and the wound is invariably fatal. 
Fighting a full-grown orang-outang with weap- 
ofis so primitive is extremely hazardous work, and 
