imaginary.

The Dyaks all declare that the Mias is never attacked by any
animal in the forest, with two rare exceptions; and the accounts
I received of these are so curious that I give them nearly in the
words of my informants, old Dyak chiefs, who had lived all their
lives in the places where the animal is most abundant. The first
of whom I inquired said: "No animal is strong enough to hurt the
Mias, and the only creature he ever fights with is the crocodile.
When there is no fruit in the jungle, he goes to seek food on the
banks of the river where there are plenty of young shoots that he
likes, and fruits that grow close to the water. Then the
crocodile sometimes tries to seize him, but the Mias gets upon
him, and beats him with his hands and feet, and tears him and
kills him." He added that he had once seen such a fight, and that
he believes that the Mias is always the victor.

My next informant was the Orang Kaya, or chief of the Balow
Dyaks, on the Simunjon River. He said: "The Mias has no enemies;
no animals dare attack it but the crocodile and the python. He
always kills the crocodile by main strength, standing upon it,
pulling open its jaws, and ripping up its throat. If a python
attacks a Mias, he seizes it with his hands, and then bites it,
and soon kills it. The Mias is very strong; there is no animal in
the jungle so strong as he."

It is very remarkable that an animal so large, so peculiar, and
of such a high type of form as the Orangutan, should be confined
to so limited a district--to two islands, and those almost the
last inhabited by the higher Mammalia; for, east of Borneo and