On the other hand it is generally distributed through Borneo, except in the mountains, or where the population is dense.  In favorable places the hunter may, by good fortune, see three or four in a day.

[Illustration:  HEAD OF ORANG-UTAN.]

Except in the pairing time, the old males usually live by themselves.  The old females and the immature males, on the other hand, are often met with in twos and threes; and the former occasionally have young with them, though the pregnant females usually separate themselves, and sometimes remain apart after they have given birth to their offspring.  The young Orangs seem to remain unusually long under their mother’s protection, probably in consequence of their slow growth.  While climbing the mother always carries her young against her bosom, the young holding on by the mother’s hair.  At what time of life the Orang-Utan becomes capable of propagation, and how long the females go with young is unknown, but it is probable that they are not adult until they arrive at ten or fifteen years of age.  A female which lived for five years at Batavia had not attained one-third the height of the wild females.  It is probable that, after reaching adult years, they go on growing, though slowly, and that they live to forty or fifty years.  The Dyaks tell of old Orangs which have not only lost all their teeth, but which find it so troublesome to climb that they maintain themselves on windfalls and juicy herbage.

The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that marvellous activity characteristic of the Gibbons.  Hunger alone seems to stir him to exertion, and when it is stilled he relapses into repose.  When the animal sits, it curves its back and bows its head, so as to look straight down on the ground; sometimes it holds on with its hands by a higher branch, sometimes lets them hang phlegmatically down by its side; and in these positions the Orang will remain for hours together, in the same spot, almost without stirring, and only now and then giving utterance to its deep, growling voice.  By day he usually climbs from one tree-top to another, and only at night descends to the ground:  and if then threatened with danger he seeks refuge among the underwood.  When not hunted, he remains a long time in the same locality, and sometimes stops for many days on the same tree, a firm place among its branches serving him for a bed.  It is rare for the Orang to pass the night in the summit of a large tree, probably because it is too windy and cold there for him; but as soon as night draws on he descends from the height and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker part, or in the leafy top of a small tree, among which he prefers Nibong palms, Pandani, or one of those parasitic orchids which gave the primeval forests of Borneo so characteristic and striking an appearance.  But whenever he determines to sleep, there he prepares himself a sort of nest; little boughs and leaves are drawn together round the selected spot,