My Next Informant Was The Orang Kaya, 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, east of Borneo and
Java, the Quadrumania, Ruminants, Carnivora, and many other
groups of Mammalla diminish rapidly, and soon entirely disappear.
When we consider, further, that almost all other animals have in
earlier ages been represented by allied yet distinct forms -
that, in the latter part of the tertiary period, Europe was
inhabited by bears, deer, wolves, and cats; Australia by
kangaroos and other marsupials; South America by gigantic sloths
and ant-eaters; all different from any now existing, though
intimately allied to them - we have every reason to believe that
the Orangutan, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla have also had
their forerunners. With what interest must every naturalist look
forward to the time when the caves and tertiary deposits of the
tropics may be thoroughly examined, and the past history and
earliest appearance of the great man-like apes be made known at
length.
I will now say a few words as to the supposed existence of a
Bornean Orang as large as the Gorilla. I have myself examined the
bodies of seventeen freshly-killed Orangs, all of which were
carefully measured; and of seven of them, I preserved the
skeleton. I also obtained two skeletons killed by other persons.
Of this extensive series, sixteen were fully adult, nine being
males, and seven females. The adult males of the large Orangs
only varied from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 2 inches in height,
measured fairly to the heel, so as to give the height of the
animal if it stood perfectly erect; the extent of the
outstretched arms, from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 8 inches; and
the width of the face, from 10 inches to 13 1/2 inches. The
dimensions given by other naturalists closely agree with mine.
The largest Orang measured by Temminck was 4 feet high. Of
twenty-five specimens collected by Schlegel and Muller, the
largest old male was 4 feet 1 inch; and the largest skeleton in
the Calcutta Museum was, according to Mr. Blyth, 4 feet 1 1/2
inch. My specimens were all from the northwest coast of Borneo;
those of the Dutch from the west and south coasts; and no
specimen has yet reached Europe exceeding these dimensions,
although the total number of skins and skeletons must amount to
over a hundred.
Strange to say, however, several persons declare that they have
measured Orangs of a much larger size. Temminck, in his Monograph
of the Orang, says that he has just received news of the capture
of a specimen 5 feet 3 inches high. Unfortunately, it never seems
to have a reached Holland, for nothing has since been heard of
any such animal. Mr. St. John, in his "Life in the Forests of the
Far East," vol. ii. p. 237, tells us of an Orang shot by a friend
of his, which was 5 feet 2 inches from the heel to the top of the
head, the arm 17 inches in girth, and the wrist 12 inches! The
head alone was brought to Sarawak, and Mr. St. John tells us that
he assisted to measure this, and that it was 15 inches broad by
14 long. Unfortunately, even this skull appears not to have been
preserved, for no specimen corresponding to these dimensions has
yet reached England.
In a letter from Sir James Brooke, dated October 1857 in which he
acknowledges the receipt of my Papers on the Orang, published in
the "Annals and Magazine of Natural History," he sends me the
measurements of a specimen killed by his nephew, which I will
give exactly as I received it: "September 3rd, 1867, killed
female Orangutan. Height, from head to heel, 4 feet 6 inches.
Stretch from fingers to fingers across body, 6 feet 1 inch.
Breadth of face, including callosities, 11 inches." Now, in these
dimensions, there is palpably one error; for in every Orang yet
measured by any naturalist, an expanse of arms of 6 feet 1 inch
corresponds to a height of about 3 feet 6 inches, while the
largest specimens of 4 feet to 4 feet 2 inches high, always have
the extended arms as much as 7 feet 3 inches to 7 feet 8 inches.
It is, in fact, one of the characters of the genus to have the
arms so long that an animal standing nearly erect can rest its
fingers on the ground. A height of 4 feet 6 inches would
therefore require a stretch of arms of at least 8 feet! If it
were only 6 feet to that height, as given in the dimensions
quoted, the animal would not be an Orang at all, but a new genus
of apes, differing materially in habits and mode of progression.
But Mr. Johnson, who shot this animal, and who knows Orangs well,
evidently considered it to be one; and we have therefore to judge
whether it is more probable that he made a mistake of two feet in
the stretch of the arms, or of one foot in the height. The latter
error is certainly the easiest to make, and it will bring his
animal into agreement, as to proportions and size, with all those
which exist in Europe.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 25 of 112
Words from 24553 to 25556
of 114260
