There is every reason to believe that the Mias, or Orang-utan, is confined to the two great islands of Sumatra and Borneo, in the former of which, however, it seems to be much more rare. In Borneo it has a wide range, inhabiting many districts on the south-west, south-east, north-east, and north-west 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 Saráwak 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 Saráwak district. Where Mr. Wallace observed the Mias it was where the country is low, level, and swampy, and at the same time covered with a lofty virgin forest. Many isolated mountains, on some of which the Dyaks have settled, are close by, and are covered with plantations of fruit-trees. These are a great attraction to the Mias, which comes to feed on the fruits, but always retires to the swamp at night. When the country becomes slightly elevated, and the soil dry, the Mias is no longer to be found. For example, in all the lower parts 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 Saráwak valley has this peculiarity: the lower portion, though swampy, is not covered with continuous lofty forests, but is principally occupied by the Nipa palm; and near the town of Saráwak, 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,” writes the same author, “that a wide extent of unbroken and equally lofty virgin forest 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, and are more cut up by clearings and low second-growth jungle. They are not adapted to its peculiar mode of progression, and they would be more exposed to danger, and more frequently obliged to descend upon the earth in such places. 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. 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 semi-erect attitude, which the great length of his arms and the shortness of his