202 PONGO 
bites off a few of these first, and then, making a small hole, tears open 
the fruits with its powerful fingers. 
“The Mias rarely descends to the ground, except when, pressed 
by hunger, it seeks for succulent shoots by the river side; or, in very 
dry weather, has to search after water, of which it generally finds 
sufficient in the hollows of leaves. Once only I saw two half grown 
Ourangs on the ground in a dry hollow at the foot of the Simunjon 
hill. They were playing together standing erect, and grasping each 
other by the arms. It may safely be stated, however, that the Ourang 
never walks erect, unless when using its hands to support itself by 
branches overhead or when attacked. Representations of its walking 
with a stick are entirely imaginary. 
“The Dyaks all declare that the Mias is never attacked by any 
animal in the forest, with two rare exceptions; and the accounts I 
received of them are so curious that I give them nearly in the words 
of my informants, old Dyak chiefs, who had lived all their lives in 
the places where the animal is most abundant. The first of whom I 
enquired said, ‘No animal is strong enough to hurt the Mias; and the 
only creature he ever fights with is the crocodile. When there is no 
fruit in the jungle, he goes to seek food on the banks of the river, 
where there are plenty of young shoots that he likes, and fruits that 
grow close to the water. Then the crocodile sometimes tries to seize 
him, but the Mias gets upon him and beats him with his hands and 
feet, and tears him and kills him.’ He added that he had once seen 
such a fight, and that he believes that the Mias is always the victor. 
“My next informant was the Orang Kayas, or chief of the Balow 
Dyaks on the Semunjon River. He said, ‘the Mias has no enemies; 
no animals dare attack it but the crocodile and the python. He always 
kills the crocodile by main strength, standing upon it, pulling open its 
jaws and ripping up its throat. If a python attacks a Mias, he seizes 
it with his hands, and then bites it, and soon kills it. The Mias is 
very strong; there is no animal in the jungle so strong as he.’ ”’ 
In regard to the size of the adult Ourang, Mr. Wallace sums up 
the evidence gained from his own experience and the published 
accounts of others as follows: “I have myself examined the bodies of 
seventeen freshly killed Orangs, all of which were carefully measured, 
and of seven of them I preserved the skeleton. Of this extensive 
series, sixteen were fully adult, nine being males and seven females. 
The adult males of the large Orangs only varied from 4 feet 1 inch to 
