188 PON GO 



upon a description and colored plate of an Ourang published by 

 Edwards in his 'Gleanings of Natural History.' Hoppius never saw 

 the specimen, and certainly had no knowledge whence it came any 

 more than did Edwards, who supposed its native country was Africa, 

 (p. 7), and Hoppius repeats this. Edwards' specimen, which he states 

 was then in the British Museum, and formerly belonged to the Sloane 

 Museum, (but is no longer there), was a young animal, possibly not 

 more than a year old, and only two feet high, (hence the name 

 pygmceus), and had been "soaked in spirits" and had to be dried 

 before a drawing could be made of it, and he states it was covered with 

 reddish brown hair. Hon. Walter Rothschild in his paper in Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. Lond., (1. c.) says this specimen of Edwards' had no 

 cheek callosities, which was a self evident fact, as the animal was 

 far too young to produce any such appendage. 



The above short history is all that is known of Simla pygmeetts, 

 whether it was a native of Borneo or Sumatra cannot be said, though 

 at the date Edwards wrote, it would be more likely to come from the 

 latter island than the former. It is impossible to form any idea as to 

 what species it represents if the Sumatran and Bornean Ourangs should 

 prove distinct, for Edwards' figure gives no clue, and the species is 

 quite undeterminable, and the name pygm^us cannot be maintained 

 unless the Sumatran and Bornean Ourangs should be proved the same, 

 in which case pygm^us, having been given to an Ourang, would have 

 precedence. 



It will be seen from the above, Linnaeus had nothing to do with 

 the bestowal of the name pygm.«:us. 



Schreber in his Saugthiere, gives a figure, uncolored, of an Ourang 

 on plate II c, with the name Simla agrias at the bottom. This Author, 

 however, never described an Ourang by that name, but in a footnote 

 on page 65, in a quotation from Herodotus the word appears, "aypuu 

 avip€cr Kai yvvaUta aypiat." The figure is that of a very young animal, 

 and appears to have been preserved in spirits. 



Rothschild says it has cheek callosities, but there is not a vestige 

 of these growths visible, the specimen was too young to produce 

 them, and moreover appears to have been a female ! 



Wagner places his Simla agrias on page 56, vol. V, among the 

 synonyms of Simla satyrus — Pongo pygm.eus. Tiedemann, Zool., 

 1808, p. 329, bestowed the name wurmbl upon an Ourang from Borneo 

 in the possession of. and described by Frederic v. Wurmb, (Ver- 

 handl. Batav. Genootsch. Deel 2, Bl. 245). Von Wurmb's description 

 indicates very clearly an Ourang, and Tiedemann, who probably knew 



