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unripe fruit; and as soon as she saw us she began breaking off branches and the great spiny fruits with every appearance of rage, causing such a shower of missiles as effectually kept us from approaching too near the tree. This habit of throwing down branches when irritated has been doubted, but I have, as here narrated, observed it myself on at least three separate occasions. It was however always the female mias who behaved in this way, and it may be that the male, trusting more to his great strength and his powerful canine teeth, is not afraid of any other animal, and does not want to drive them away, while the parental instinct of the female leads her to adopt this mode of defending herself and her young ones.

In preparing the skins and skeletons of these animals, I was much troubled by the Dyak dogs, which, being always kept in a state of semi-starvation, are ravenous for animal food. I had a great iron pan, in which I boiled the bones to make skeletons, and at night I covered this over with boards, and put heavy stones upon it; but the dogs managed to remove these, and carried away the greater part of one of my specimens. On another occasion they gnawed away a good deal of the upper leather of my strong boots, and even ate a piece of my mosquito-curtain, where some lamp-oil had been spilt over it some weeks before.

On our return down the stream, we had the fortune to fall in with a very old male mias, feeding on some low trees growing in the water. The country was flooded for a long distance, but so full of trees and stumps that the laden boat could not be got in among them, and if it could have been we should only have frightened the mias away. I therefore got into the water, which was nearly up to my waist, and waded on till I was near enough for a shot. The difficulty then was to load my gun again, for I was so deep in the water that I could not hold the gun sloping enough to pour the powder in. I therefore had to search for a shallow place, and after several shots under these trying circumstances, I was delighted to see the monstrous animal roll over in the water. I now towed him after me to the stream, but the Malays objected to have the animal put into the boat, and he was so heavy that I could not do it without their help.

I looked about for a place to skin him, but not a bit of dry ground was to be seen, till at last I found a clump of two or three old trees and stumps, between which a few feet of soil had collected just above the water, and which was just large enough for us to drag the animal upon it. I first measured him, and found him to be by far the largest I had yet seen, for though the standing height was the same as the others (4 feet 2 inches), yet the outstretched arms were 7 feet 9 inches, which was six inches more than the previous one, and the immense broad face was 13 inches wide, whereas the widest I had hitherto seen was only 11 inches. The girth of the body was 3 feet 7 inches. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that the length and strength of the arms, and the width of the face, continues increasing to a very great age, while the standing height, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, rarely if ever exceeds 4 feet 2 inches.

rare.

As this was the last mias I shot, and the last time I saw an adult living animal, I will give a sketch of its general habits, and any other facts connected with it. The orang-utan is known to inhabit Sumatra and Borneo, and there is every reason to believe that it is confined to these two great islands, in the former of which, however, it seems to be much more In Borneo it has a wide range, inhabiting many districts on the south-west, south-east, north-east, and northwest coasts, but appears to be chiefly confined to the low and swampy forests. It seems, at first sight, very inexplicable that the mias should be quite unknown in the Sarawak valley, while it is abundant in Sambas on the west, and Sádong on the east. But when we know the habits and mode of life of the animal, we see a sufficient reason for this apparent anomaly in the physical features of the Sarawak district. In the Sádong, where I observed it, the mias is only found when the country is low, level, and swampy, and at the same time covered with a lofty virgin forest. From these swamps rise many isolated mountains, on some of which the dyaks have settled, and covered with plantations of fruit-trees. These are a great attraction to the mias, which comes to feed on the unripe fruits, but always retires to the swamp at night. Where the country becomes slightly elevated and the soil dry, the mias is no longer to be found. For example, in all

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the lower part of the Sádong valley it abounds; but as soon as we ascend above the limits of the tides, where the country, though still flat, is high enough to be dry, it disappears. Now the Sarawak valley has this peculiarity: the lower portion, though swampy, is not covered with continuous lofty forest, but is principally occupied by the Nypa palm; and near the town of Sarawak, where the country becomes dry, it is greatly undulated in many parts, and covered with small patches of virgin forest, and much second-growth jungle on ground which has once been cultivated by the Malays or Dyaks.

Now it seems to me probable that a wide extent of unbroken and equally lofty virgin forests is necessary to the comfortable existence of these animals. Such forests form their open country, where they can roam in every direction with as much facility as the Indian on the prairie, or the Arab on the desert; passing from tree-top to tree-top without ever being obliged to descend upon the earth. The elevated and the drier districts are more frequented by man, more cut up by clearings and low second-growth jungle not adapted to its peculiar modes of progression, and where it would therefore be more exposed to danger, and more frequently obliged to descend upon the earth. There is probably also a greater variety of fruit in the mias district, the small mountains, which rise like islands out of it, serving as a sort of gardens or plantations, where the trees of the uplands are to be found in the very midst of the swampy plains.

It is a singular and very interesting sight to watch a mias making his way leisurely through the forest. He walks deliberately along some of the larger branches, in the semierect attitude which the great length of his arms and the shortness of his legs cause him naturally to assume; and the disproportion between these limbs is increased by his walking on his knuckles, not on the palm of the hand, as we should do. He seems always to choose those branches which intermingle with an adjoining tree, on approaching which he stretches out his long arms, and, seizing the opposing boughs, grasps them together with both hands, seems to try their strength, and then deliberately swings himself across to the next branch, on which he walks along as before.

He never

jumps or springs, or even appears to hurry himself, and yet manages to get along almost as quickly as a person can run through the forest beneath. The long and powerful arms are of the greatest use to the animal, enabling it to climb easily up the loftiest trees, to seize fruits and young leaves from slender boughs which will not bear its weight, and to gather leaves and branches with which to form its nest. I have already described how it forms a nest when wounded, but it uses a similar one to sleep on almost every night. This is placed low down, however, on a small tree not more than from twenty to fifty feet from the ground, probably because it is warmer and less exposed to wind than higher up. Each mias is said to make a fresh one for himself every night; but I should think that is hardly probable, or their remains would be much more abundant, for though I saw several about the coal-mines, there must have been many orangs about every day, and in a year their deserted nests would become very numerous. The Dyaks say that, when it is very wet, the mias covers himself over with leaves of pandanus, or large ferns, which has perhaps led to the story of his making a hut in the trees.

The orang does not leave his bed till the sun has well risen and has dried up the dew upon the leaves. He feeds all through the middle of the day, but seldom returns to the same tree two days running. They do not seem much alarmed at man, as they often stared down upon me for several minutes, and then only moved away slowly to an adjacent tree. After seeing one, I have often had to go half a mile or more to fetch my gun, and in nearly every case have found it on the same tree, or within a hundred yards, when I returned. I never saw two full-grown animals together, but both males and females are sometimes accompanied by half-grown young ones, while at other times three or four young ones were seen in company. Their food consists almost exclusively of fruit, with occasionally leaves, buds, and young shoots. They seem to prefer unripe fruits, some of which were very sour, others intensely bitter, particularly the large, red, fleshy arillus of one which seemed an especial favorite. In other cases they eat only the small seed of a large fruit, and they almost always waste an destroy mere than

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they eat, so that there is a continual rain of rejected portions below the tree they are feeding on. The durion is an especial favorite, and quantities of this delicious fruit are destroyed wherever it grows surrounded by forest, but they will not cross clearings to get at them. It seems wonderful how the animal can tear open this fruit, the outer covering of which is so thick and tough, and closely covered with strong conical spines. It probably bites off a few of these first, and then making a small hole, tears open the fruit with its powerful fingers.

The mias rarely descends to the ground except when, pressed by hunger, it seeks for succulent shoots by the riverside, 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 orangs 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 be safely stated, however, that the orang 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 these 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 inquired 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 kaya, or chief of the Balow Dyaks, on the Simunjon 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.