Zoological Society. 599 



very short. Mr. Ogilby entered at some length into the characters 

 and relations of the genus Kemas ; he observed that naturalists and 

 commentators had greatly puzzled themselves to discover the deri- 

 vation of the word Kemas, and the animal to which the ancient 

 Greeks applied that name. Among others, Col. H. Smith applies it 

 to the Chiru, with which the ancients certainly were not acquainted : 

 but Mr. Ogilby observed, that the root, both of the Greek Kemas and 

 the modern Chamois, was manifestly traceable to the German word 

 Gems, which is still the name of the Chamois eastward of the Rhine, 

 and which the Dutch colonists have transferred to the Cape Oryx 

 {Oryx capensis). 



August 22nd, 1837. — Mr. Owen brought before the notice of the 

 Society, through the kindness of Mr. Edward Verreaux, the cranium 

 of an Orang Outang (Simia Wurmbii, Fisch.), exhibiting an inter- 

 mediate or transitional state of dentition, there being in the upper 

 jaw the first or middle incisors, and first and second molares on each 

 side belonging to the permanent series, and the lateral incisors, the 

 canines, and the first and second molares (which are replaced by the 

 bicuspides) belonging to the deciduous series ; and in the lower jaw, 

 both the middle and lateral incisors, and first and second molares on 

 each side belonging to the permanent series, and the second left 

 lateral deciduous incisor (not yet shed), the deciduous canines, and 

 the first and second deciduous molares. 



The permanent teeth, which were in place, corresponded in size 

 with those of the great Pongo of Wurmb, and prove that the Orang 

 differs from man in the order of succession of the permanent teeth, 

 having the second true molar, (or fourth if the bicuspides are reckoned 

 as molars), in place before the appearance of the permanent canines. 



Mr. Owen remarked, that the intermaxillary suture still remained 

 unobliterated in the immature cranium exhibited, and he conceived 

 that the ultimate obliteration might be caused by the increased vas- 

 cularity of the parts during the protrusion of the great laniary teeth. 

 In the Chimpanzee this obliteration takes place at a much earlier 

 period. 



Although the marks of immaturity, and consequently those which 

 impress an anthropoid character upon the skull of the Orang, were 

 generally present in the head exhibited, yet, on a comparison of it 

 with the skull of a younger Orang in which all the deciduous teeth 

 were retained, an approach to the condition of the mature cranium 

 might be observed in the greater protrusion of the intermaxillaries, 

 the lengthening of the maxillary bones, a thickening and greater 

 prominence of the external and superior boundary of the orbit, an 

 enlargement and thickening of the malar bone and zygoma, in the 

 commencement of the development of the cranial ridges, and in the 

 widening and deepening of the lower jaw*. 



Mr. Owen then directed the attention of the Meeting to an ex- 



* [Abstracts of Prof. Owen's former memoirs on different species of 

 Orangs have appeared in Phil. Mag. and Annals, N.S. vol. ix. p. 60 ; and 

 Lend, and Edinb. Phil. Mag. vol. vi. p. 457, and vol. x. p. 295.— Edit.] 



