378 Savage and Wyman 



distinguishing the femur of the Chimpanzee from that of the 

 Ourang Outang.* 



Young skeleton. The pieces which compose the vertebral 

 column were in all 33, viz. : 



Cervical, 7 



Dorsal, 13 



Lumbar, 4 



Sacral and Coccygeal, 9 

 The body of the atlas was still ununited to its wings, and 

 the clentatus was already beginning to be bifurcated. The 

 fourth lumbar had already reached the ilia, and its transverse 

 processes were beginning to be flattened at their extremities, 

 in the same manner as the sacral vertebrfE. The number o) 

 bones united with the ilia independent of the fourth lumbal 

 is in this instance four, diflering in this respect from the 

 description of the adult in the preceding pages, where the 

 number is three, and still more from that of Professor Owen, 

 who describes but two false vertebra) having any connection 

 with the iliac bones. Professor Owen describes but seven 

 false vertebra?, and in speaking of the last, says, " the seventh 

 seems to be composed of two joined together ; but this ap- 

 pearance may result from the partial ossification of the sciatic 

 ligaments ; and this is the more probable as in the skeletons 

 of the young Chimpanzee preserved in the Hunterian Mu- 

 seum, after the four lumbar vertebra? there remain only seven 

 for the sacrum and coccyx." From this it would appear that 

 the entire number of pieces composing the vertebral column 

 was but tliirty-one, whereas in Dr. Lewis's skeleton it amount- 



* Dr. John Jeffries, in the Boston Journal of Philosophy, Vol. TI., has given a 

 detailed account of the dissection of an Ourang Outang, and in describing the hip 

 joint, says, " the articulation of the femur with the acetabulum is almost exactly like 

 man's," which would naturally lead us to infer (as Professor Owen remarks, since 

 nothing is said to the contrary) that a ligamentum teres really existed. The speci- 

 men in question still exists in the Cabinet of the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 and by the kindness of Dr. Jeffries I have had an opportunity of making the ex- 

 amination necessary for deciding whether this is really the case. The skeleton 

 being a ligamentary one, the hip joint had not been opened, and on softening the 

 parts, and turning out the head of the femur, no ligament nor any depression what- 

 ever corresponding to that which exists in man and the Chimpanzee was found, 

 the articulating surface being uniformly smooth and convex. 



