16 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

giving unmistakable signs of her delight in their company
and distress in their absence. She would often take the
hay from her bed and spread it at her side and with anxious
and obvious signs invite her keeper to sit beside her. M.
Palavicini credited a pair of orangs which he had in his
possession in 1759 with the still more remarkable quality
in animals of bashfulness, It is said that the female would
shrink from the too persistent gaze of a spectator, and throw
herself into the arms of the male, hiding her face in his
bosom.
The Maternal) In his “Marvels and Mysteries of Instinct,”
Instinct. Mr. Garrett gives the following instance of
maternal affection. “A gentleman was out with a party of
men in Sumatra, when in some trees removed from a dense
forest a female orang-utan, with a young one in its arms,
was discovered, and the pursuit commenced. In the ardour
of the moment, and excited by the hope of possessing an
animal so rare, the gentleman forgot everything but the prize
before him, and urged on his men by the promise of a
reward, should their exertions be successful. Thus stimulated
they followed up the chase; the animal, encumbered by her
young one, making prodigious efforts to gain the dense and
intricate recesses of the wood, springing from tree to tree,
and endeavouring by every means to elude her pursuers.
Several shots were fired, and at length one took fatal effect,
the ball penetrating the right side of the chest. Feeling
herself mortally wounded, and with the blood gushing from
her mouth, she from that moment took no care of herself,
but with a mother’s feelings summoned up all her dying
energies to save her young one. She threw it onwards over
the tops of the trees, and from one branch to another,
taking the most desperate leaps after it herself, and again
facilitating its progress until, the intricacy of the forest being
nearly gained, its chances of success were sure. All this time
the blood was flowing: but her efforts had been unabated,