patches of virgin forest, and much second-growth jungle on the ground,
which has once been cultivated by the Malays or Dyaks.
Now it seems probable to me that a wide extent of unbroken and equally
lofty virgin forest is necessary to the comfortable existence of these
animals. Such forests form their open country, where they can roam in
every direction with as much facility as the Indian on the prairie, or
the Arab on the desert, passing from tree-top to tree-top without ever
being obliged to descend upon the earth. The elevated and the drier
districts are more frequented by man, more cut up by clearings and low
second-growth jungle--not adapted to its peculiar mode of progression,
and where it would therefore be more exposed to danger, and more
frequently obliged to descend upon the earth. There is probably also a
greater variety of fruit in the Mias district, the small mountains which
rise like islands out of it serving as gardens or plantations of a sort,
where the trees of the uplands are to be found in the very midst of the
swampy plains.
It is a singular and very interesting sight to watch a Mias making his
way leisurely through the forest. He walks deliberately along some of
the larger branches in the semi-erect attitude which the great length
of his arms and the shortness of his legs cause him naturally to assume;
and the disproportion between these limbs is increased by his walking
on his knuckles, not on the palm of the hand, as we should do. He seems
always to choose those branches which intermingle with an adjoining
tree, on approaching which he stretches out his long arms, and seizing
the opposing boughs, grasps them together with both hands, seems to try
their strength, and then deliberately swings himself across to the next
branch, on which he walks along as before. He never jumps or springs,
or even appears to hurry himself, and yet manages to get along almost
as quickly as a person can run through the forest beneath. The long
and powerful arms are of the greatest use to the animal, enabling it
to climb easily up the loftiest trees, to seize fruits and young leaves
from slender boughs which will not bear its weight, and to gather leaves
and branches with which to form its nest. I have already described how
it forms a nest when wounded, but it uses a similar one to sleep on
almost every night. This is placed low down, however, on a small tree
not more than from twenty to fifty feet from the ground, probably
because it is warmer and less exposed to wind than higher up. Each Mias
is said to make a fresh one for himself every night; but I should think
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