The Apes.- 
-MAMMALIA. - 
-The Ora.vg-outan. 
21 
of tlio characters which have been chiefly relied upon 
for the discrimination of these species are fallacious. 
The Bornean orangs all seem to be referable to two 
species, the differences between which are, as Mr. 
Wallace observes, well marked in the males, but much 
less distinct in the females. Both these species appear 
to be called Orang-outan, or “ man of the woods, ” by 
the Malays of the coast of Borneo, but the Dyaks, who 
are more familiar with them, call them Mias, and dis- 
tinguish two or three kinds by particular names. 
The largest species found in Borneo, and the one 
which is most abundant there, may be regarded as the 
true orang-outan, or Simia Satyrus of Linnseus. It 
is called Mias Pappan, Mias Chappan, and Mfas Zimh 
by the natives; the second name, according to Sir 
James Brooke, being applied to it by the Malays. 
The arms are of great length, reaching nearly to the 
heel when the animal is in an erect posture; the body 
is covered with long reddish hairs, which form a long 
beard pendent from the chin; the hairs of the fore-arms 
are turned towards the elbow, in the same waj^ as in 
the chimpanzee and gorilla; the face is naked, and, in 
the males, greatly expanded at the sides by two large 
fatty protuberances on the cheeks; the ears are small 
and rounded, and greatly resemble those of man in 
form; and the lips are very large, and capable of 
being protruded and retracted to a great extent. The 
largest adult males met with by Mr. Wallace in 
Borneo, measured four feet two inches in height, from 
the crown of the head to the heel; but if we can believe 
the accounts of other travellers, the species must attain 
much larger dimensions. M. Temminck mentions 
his having heard of a Bornean specimen of five feet 
three inches in height; and a specimen from Sumatra, 
described by Dr. Clarke Abel, was said to measure 
about seven feet. The females are considerably 
smaller than the males. 
In the orang there is a remarkably large guttural 
pouch descending in front of the sternum, and com- 
municating with the wind-pipe, from which it may be 
greatly inflated with air. This occurs also, although 
far less developed, in the chimpanzee and gorilla. 
The observations of M. Salomon Muller, and of 
Mr. Wallace, have furnished us with a tolerably com- 
plete history of the orang-outan in a state of nature. 
This animal lives in the lofty primseval forests of 
Borneo and Sumatra, but only in the swampy dis- 
tricts, where the forest is unbroken, and the interlacing 
branches afford him a means of passing readily from 
tree to tree, without the labour of descending to the 
ground. Mr. Wallace describes it as a “ singular and 
most interesting sight to watch a mias making his way 
leisurely through the forest. He walks deliberately 
along the branches, in the semi-erect attitude which 
the great length of his arms, and the shortness of his 
legs give him; choosing a place where the boughs of 
an adjacent tree intermingle, he seizes the smaller 
twigs, pulls them towards him, grasps them together 
with those of the tree he is on, and thus, forming a 
kind of bridge, swings himself onward, and seizing hold 
of a thick branch with his long arms, is in an instant 
walking along to the opposite side of the tree. He 
never jumps or springs, or even appears to hurry him- 
self, and yet moves as quickly as a man can run along 
the ground beneath.” Unlike the chimpanzee and the 
gorilla, it is a solitary creature ; Mr. Wallace says, that 
he has “ never seen two adult animals together; but 
both males and females are sometimes accompanied 
by half-grown young ones, or two or three of the latter 
go in company.” 
When not disturbed, or in search of food, the orang 
appears to be sedentary in its habits. It sleeps every 
night on a nest made by breaking off the leafy branches 
of trees, and laying them over each other upon a forked 
horizontal branch, until it forms a bed so thick as to 
conceal it entirely from below ; in rainy weather it is 
also said to cover itself in a similar manner with small 
branches and leaves, and to keep its bed till about nine 
o’clock, when the sun has become hot enough to dis- 
perse the mists. The nest is usually placed at about 
fifty or sixty feet from the ground. As the same animal 
appears seldom to use these nests more than once or 
twice, they are very abundant in places frequented by 
the mias. 
The food of the orang-outan consists almost entirely 
of fruits ; but when these are scarce, the tender shoots 
and leaves of trees do not come amiss to him. An old 
male was once found to have in his stomach fragments 
of the bark of trees of upwards of a foot in length. 
According to Mr. Wallace they seem to prefer their 
fruit unripe, and many of them are intensely bitter; par- 
ticularly the large, red, fleshy arillus of one fruit, which 
seems to be an especial favourite. Of another large 
fruit they only eat the small seed, and in search of this 
destroy great quantities of the fruit. “ The Durian 
{Durio zibethinus)," says Mr. Wallace, “is also a great 
favourite, and the mias destroys large quantities of this 
delicious fruit, in places where it grows surrounded by 
lofty jungle, but will not pass over clearings to get at 
them. It seems wonderful how the animal can tear 
open this fruit, the outer covering of which is so thick, 
tough, and densely covered with strong, conical spines. 
It probably bites a few of these off' first, and then, mak- 
ing a small hole, tears the fruit open with its powerful 
fingers.” In some places the orangs appear to be 
somewhat migratory in their habits, moving after par- 
ticular fruits of which they are fond ; thus they are 
said to move into the southern parts of Borneo, and to 
make their appearance on the right bank of the river 
Dousson, at the period when the fruits of a certain 
species of fig {Ficus ivfectoria) are ripe. After this 
they disappear from those localities. They seem rarely 
to descend to the ground except in search of water, 
which they drink by taking a little up in their hands 
and letting it flow into the lower lip, which is protruded 
so as to form a sort of channel for this purpose. When 
on the ground they walk on all-fours, like the other 
apes, and appear to have less power of maintaining 
themselves in an erect posture than the chimpanzees. 
Some individuals, in confinement, have been seen to 
move along a flat surface by resting on the knuckles of 
their hands, and then throwing the body and legs for- 
ward in the manner of a lame man on crutches ; this 
mode of progression is not natural to the species, as has 
been supposed, but appears only to be adopted by sickly 
individuals. 
