The Animal World, A Book of Natural History: Young Folks' Treasury (Volume V)Wood, Theodore
General
The Animal World, A Book of Natural History: Young Folks' Treasury (Volume V)
Wood, Theodore
Animals -- Juvenile literature
Another very famous ape is the orang-utan, which is found in Borneo and
Sumatra. It is reddish brown in color, and is clothed with much longer
hair than either the gorilla or the chimpanzee, while its face is
surprisingly large and broad, with a very high forehead. But the most
curious feature of this animal is the great length of its arms. When a
man stands upright, and allows his arms to hang down by his sides, the
tips of his fingers reach about half-way between his hips and his knees.
When a chimpanzee stands as upright as possible, the tips of its fingers
almost touch its knees. But when an orang-utan does the same its fingers
nearly touch the ground. Of course, when the animal is walking, it finds
that these long arms are very much in its way. So it generally uses them
as crutches, resting the knuckles upon the ground, and swinging its body
between them.
But the orang seldom comes down to the ground, for it is far more at its
ease among the branches of the trees. And although it never seems to be
in a hurry, it will swing itself along from bough to bough, and from
tree to tree, quite as fast as a man can run below. Like the gorilla and
the chimpanzee, it makes rough nests of twisted boughs, in which the
female animal and the little ones sleep. And if it is mortally wounded,
it nearly always makes a platform of branches in the same way, and sits
upon it waiting for death.
Orangs are often to be seen in zoölogical gardens, although they are so
delicate that they do not thrive well in captivity. One of these
animals, which lived in the London Zoo for some time, had learned a very
clever trick. Leaning up against his cage was a placard, on which were
the words "The animals in this cage must not be fed." The orang very
soon found out that when this notice was up nobody gave him any nuts or
biscuits. So he would wait until the keeper's back was turned,
knock the placard down with the printed words underneath, and then hold
out his paw for food!
As a general rule, orangs seem far too lazy to be at all savage. Those
in zoos nearly always lie about on the floor of their cage all day,
wrapped in their blankets, with a kind of good-humored grin upon their
great broad faces. But when they are roused into passion they seem to be
very formidable creatures, and Alfred Russel Wallace tells us of an
orang that turned upon a Dyak who was trying to spear it, tore his arm
so terribly with his teeth that he never recovered the proper use of the
limb, and would almost certainly have killed him if some of his
companions had not come to his rescue.
GIBBONS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account