Brehm's Life of animals - a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools (1895) (20403882782)

Title: Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools
Identifier: brehmslifeofanim00breh (find matches)
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Brehm, Alfred Edmund, 1829-1884; PechuLoesche, Eduard, 1840-1913; Haacke, Wilhelm, 1855-1912; Schmidtlein, Richard
Subjects: Mammals; Animal behavior
Publisher: Chicago : Marquis
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library



Text Appearing Before Image:
THE MAN-SHAPED APES—ORANG-UTAN. 21
Text Appearing After Image:
WHITE-HANDED GIBBONS.—These active and prettv animals are found in Terrasserim, southwest of Burmah, and are noted for their loud voices. Troops of them will get together in the deep forests and fill the air with their not unmusical cries for hours at a time. A white band of hair encircles the entire face and the body is black, dark-brown or ochre-brown. These interesting creatures drink water from the palms of their hands, are readily tamed in India but do not long survive foreign captivity. The artist represents them in the picture mounted on a favorite tree, suspiciously regarding some approaching object. (Hylobates lar.) of these nests would be oftener found. The Dyaks claim that in wet weather the Mias covers him- self with pandanus leaves or large ferns. Perhaps thfs is the origin of the belief that the Orang-utan builds a hut in the trees in which to live. " The Orang-utan leaves his bed when the sun is well above the horizon and has dried the dew on the leaves. During the day he eats, but seldom visits the same tree two days in succession. As far as I could determine he feeds almost exclusively on fruit, but occasionally on leaves and buds. In very rare cases he descends to the ground ; probably only when, driven by hunger, he looks for juicy young leaves on the banks of a river ; or when in exceed- ingly dry weather he comes down for water, which is usually supplied him sufficiently in the hollows of leaves. Only once I saw two half- grown Orangs on the ground in a dry hole. They were standing erect, holding each other's arms and playing. This Ape never walks up- right, unless he holds to the branches of trees, or is attacked. Pictures that represent him walk- ing with the help of a stick are pure inventions. " They do not seem to fear Men very much. Nearly all of those I observed stared at me for a few minutes and then deliberately repaired to a tree in the neighborhood. It frequently hap- pened when I saw one, that I had to go a thou- sand paces or more after my gun ; nevertheless I would find him on the same tree upon my return, or within a hundred feet of the spot where 1 had first seen him. I never saw two full-grown Orangs together, though males as well as females sometimes are accompanied by half-grown young ones. " All the Dyak chiefs, who had spent theii lives in a country where the Orang abounds- assured me that no animal was strong enough to hurt one, and the only animal he fights with is the Crocodile. When the Orang runs short of fruit, he descends to the river banks to look for young shoots and fruit. Then the Crocodile tries to seize him, but the Orang jumps on it, beats it with hands and feet and kills it. "Rarely does it happen that an Orang fights with a human being. One day several Dyaks came to tell me that one of these animals had nearly killed a companion. His house was standing on the bank of the river, and he saw an Orang-utan making a meal of the young leaves of a palm. He frightened him, and the Ape beat a retreat into the woods. A