Page:Hunting and trapping stories; a book for boys (IA huntingtrappings00pric).pdf/173

 Orang-Utans eat nothing but fruit when they are wild, and they pick out the best. When caged however they will sometimes eat warm boiled rice. Pineapples and oranges they dearly love as any one can testify who has seen a keeper approach their cage holding one of these fruits in his hand. They leap up and down just like naughty children and scream and shake the bars of their cage until the dainties are handed in to them.

What the Gorilla is to the West Coast of Africa the Orang-Utan is to the Far East; although there is a great difference between the two creatures. The orang is not nearly as fierce, nor as large as its cousin, and moreover the one is colored red while the other is slaty black.

One day a hunter who was looking for small game birds suddenly came face to face with a full grown male orang-utan. It was the first time he had seen the ape and for a few minutes he lost all sense of fear, so interested was he in looking at the great creature. The orang, on its part, had evidently never seen a white man before. After the pair had looked at each other to their heart's content, the orang turned round and went about its business. At no time did it show any signs of anger or attempt to injure the hunter. The natives do not hold the orang in the terror that Africans do the gorilla, but their feeling is rather one of awe, for they know perfectly well that the "red one" must be left alone or else it will revenge itself upon its enemies in dreadful fashion.

Small boys flatter themselves that they are good climbers, but they should see an orang "hand over hand" up a big tree; with its enormous stretch of arms it is able to move at great speed. The leopard is reckoned a good climber but the orang would overtake it in no time.

A full grown male orang-utan, in perfect health and strength, frequently measures over seven feet when its arms are included, and this is no beast for a poor miserable man to tackle unless he has the best of rifles and is sure of his aim. He will but seldom kill an orang at the first shot, and the best he can hope to do is to check its rush but woe betide him if he misses altogether, for in spite of its great bulk the orang-utan is wonderfully quick and will charge its enemy like lightning.

Many a hunter has paid with his life for his ignorance while hunting this great ape. The orang does not seem to be so very strong and its clumsy build, and shuffling movements give the impression that it is not agile, but no greater mistake can be made. The natives of Sumatra tell many stories of the orang-utans and their feats of strength and great endurance, and surely they ought to know what they are talking about.