i TYSON'S PYGMIE. H 



and as stout as one of six years: and that its back 

 was covered with black hair. It is plainly a young 

 Chimpanzee. 



In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asi- 

 atic, man-like Apes became known, but at first 

 in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius (1658) 

 gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous ac- 

 count and figure of an animal which he calls 

 " Orang-outang "; and though he says " vidi Ego 

 cujus effigiem hie exhibeo," the said effigies (see 

 Fig. 6 for Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a 

 very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and 

 with proportions and feet wholly human. The 

 judicious English anatomist, Tyson, was justified 

 in saying of this description by Bontius, " I confess 

 I do mistrust the whole representation." 



It is to the last-mentioned writer, and his coad- 

 jutor Cowper, that we owe the first account of a 

 man-like ape which has any pretensions to scien- 

 tific accuracy and completeness. The treatise en- 

 titled, " Orang-outang, sive Homo Sylvestris; or 

 the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a 

 Monkey, an Ape, and a Man," published by the 

 Royal Society in 1G99, is, indeed, a work of re- 

 markable merit, and has, in some respects, served 

 as a model to subsequent inquirers. This " Pyg- 

 mie," Tyson tells us "was brought from Angola, in 

 Africa; but was first taken a great deal higher up 

 the country "; its hair " was of a coal-black colour 

 and strait," and " when it went as a quadruped 



