Where Australia Collides with AsiaOnce while out collecting, Wallace heard a rustling in a nearby tree. He looked
up and saw his first orangutan, its hair a remarkable orange colour, moving from
branch to branch. He followed it through the jungle as it slowly swung from tree to
tree, and found its nest formed of sticks and boughs placed in a forked branch. Since
Wallace was a collector he had no compunction in shooting and skinning at least
fifteen of these ‘men of the forest’ (orang hutan, in Malay) to send back to collectors
in England. He once found an orphaned baby lying in the mud where she fell after he
had shot her mother for his collection. A young orangutan spends its first six months
hanging on to its mother and the baby was quite comfortable hanging on to Wallace
and placing her tiny hands in his large beard and like a human baby she would cry
when laid down by herself. Wallace fed her by bottle, but his hopes of introducing his
little girl to London society were dashed when she failed to thrive:
Unfortunately, I had no milk to give it, as neither Malays, Chinese, nor Dyaks ever use that
article, I in vain inquired for any female animal that could suckle my little infant. I was
therefore obliged to give it rice-water from a bottle with a quill in the cork, which after a
few trials it learned to suck very well. This was a very meagre diet, and the little creature
did not thrive well on it, although I added sugar and cocoa-nut milk occasionally, to make it
more nourishing. When I put a finger in its mouth, it sucked with great vigour, drawing in itsSketch of a younger orangutan, Gustav Mutzel132
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