Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/454

438 The food of the orang-outang is strictly a vegetable one. It has the habit of not rising very early in the morning, waiting until the sun has dried the dews, and Nature has dressed herself for its appearance. Although the orang does not court danger, it does not seem afraid to fight if necessity obliges. Wallace narrates the combat between a Dyak and an orang, in which the native was terribly bitten and might have been killed had not assistance arrived. The orang was then killed by numbers, and Wallace rescued the skin and head to be added to his large collections, and taken later to England. Mr. Wallace also succeeded in finding a baby orang-outang, and gives his experience with it as follows:

This account is interesting, because it shows that in its actions the young orang-outang recalls what we are familiar with in infants; and again it illustrates the activity of the limbs at an early age and before they can be used intelligently. There can be no doubt that in this way we come to use our limbs at first, by a sort of blind groping in the uncertain light of infancy. We feel a sympathy for Mr. Wallace that his baby orang-outang never would do anything to reflect credit on its bringing-up, and finally died in an obstinate and childish manner. It was thought that it never entirely got over its separation from its family, but this may have been a fancy.

Another long-armed ape is the gibbon (Hylobates far), which is smaller than the orang-outang and exceedingly intelligent. This