destroyed wherever it grows surrounded by forest, hut 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
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 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. I t 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 5 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 M'ias 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 Kjaya, 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 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.”
It is very remarkable that an animal so large, so
peculiar, and of such a high type of form as the Orangutan,
should be confined to so limited a district—to two
islands, and those almost the last inhabited by the
higher Mammalia; for, eastward of Borneo and Java,
the Quadrumania, Ruminants, Carnivora, and many other
groups of Mammalia, diminish rapidly, and soon entirely