The Orang-Utan
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
Next we come to the gibbons, which are very wonderful animals, for they are such astonishing gymnasts. Most monkeys are very active in the trees, but the gibbons almost seem to be flying from bough to bough, dashing about with such marvelous speed that the eye can scarcely follow their movements. Travelers, on seeing them for the first time, have often mistaken them for big blackbirds. They hardly seem to swing themselves from one branch to another. They just dart and dash about, upward, downward, sideways, backward, often taking leaps of twenty or thirty feet through the air. And yet, so far as one can see, they only just touch the boughs as they pass with the tips of their fingers.
If you should happen to see a gibbon in the next zoo that you visit, be sure to ask the keeper to offer the animal a grape, or a piece of banana, and you will be more than surprised at its marvelous activity.
The arms of the gibbons are very long—although not quite so long as those of the orang-utan—so that when these animals stand as upright as they can the tips of their fingers nearly touch the ground. But they do not use these limbs as crutches, as the orang does. Instead of that, they either clasp their hands behind the neck while they are walking, or else stretch out the arms on either side with the elbows bent downward, to help them in keeping their balance. So that when a gibbon leaves the trees and takes a short stroll upon the ground below, it looks rather like a big letter W suspended on a forked pole!
