For Some Weeks After, A Cloud Of Flies Could Be Seen All Day,
Hovering Over The Body Of The Dead Mias; But In About A Month All
Was Quiet, And The Body Was Evidently Drying Up Under The
Influence Of A Vertical Sun Alternating With Tropical Rains.
Two
or three months later two Malays, on the offer of a dollar,
climbed the tree and let down the dried remains.
The skin was
almost entirely enclosing the skeleton, and inside were millions
of the pupa-cases of flies and other insects, with thousands of
two or three species of small necrophagous beetles. The skull had
been much shattered by balls, but the skeleton was perfect,
except one small wristbone, which had probably dropped out and
been carried away by a lizard.
Three days after I had shot this one and lost it, Charles found
three small Orangs feeding together. We had a long chase after
them, and had a good opportunity of seeing how they make their
way from tree to tree by always choosing those limbs whose
branches are intermingled with those of some other tree, and then
grasping several of the small twigs together before they venture
to swing themselves across. Yet they do this so quickly and
certainly, that they make way among the trees at the rate of full
five or six miles an hour, as we had continually to run to keep
up with them. One of these we shot and killed, but it remained
high up in the fork of a tree; and, as young animals are of
comparatively little interest, I did not have the tree cut down
to get it.
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