72 Borneo — The Orang-Utan. 



strength, standing upon it, pulling open its jaws, and ripping 

 up its throat. If a python attacks a mias, he seizes it with 

 his hands, and then bites it, and soon kills it. The mias is 

 very strong; there is no animal in the jungle so strong as 

 he." 



It is very remarkable that an animal so large, so peculiar, 

 and of such a high type of form as the orang-utan, should be 

 confined to so limited a district — to two islands, and those 

 almost the last inhabited by the higher Mammalia ; for, east- 

 ward of Borneo and Java, the Quadrumania, Ruminants, Car- 

 nivora, and many other groups of Mammalia, diminish rapid- 

 ly, and soon entirely disappear. When we consider, further, 

 that almost all other animals have in earlier ages been repre- 

 sented by allied yet distinct forms — that, in the latter part 

 of the tertiary period, Europe was inhabited by bears, deer, 

 wolves, and cats ; Australia by kangaroos and other Marsu- 

 pials ; South America by gigantic sloths and ant-eaters ; all 

 different from any now existing, though intimately allied to 

 them — we have every reason to believe that the orang-utan, 

 the chimpanzee, and the gorilla have also had their forerun- 

 ners. With what interest must every naturalist look forward 

 to the time when the caves and tertiary deposits of the trop- 

 ics may be thoroughly examined, and the past history an<J 

 earliest appearance of the great man-like apes be at length 

 made known. 



I will now say a few words as to the supposed existence 

 of a Bornean orang as large as the gorilla, I have myself 

 examined the bodies of seventeen freshly-killed orangs, all of 

 which were carefully measured, and of seven of them I pre- 

 served the skeleton. I also obtained two skeletons killed by 

 other persons. Of this extensive series, sixteen were fully 

 adult, nine being males, and seven females. The adult males 

 of the large orangs only varied from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 2 

 inches in height, measured fairly to the heel, so as to give 

 the height of the animal if it stood perfectly erect ; the ex- 

 tent of the outstretched arms, from 7 feet 2 inches to V feet 8 

 inches; and the width of the face, from 10 inches to 13^ 

 inches. The dimensions given by other naturalists closely 

 agree with mine. The largest orang measured by Temminck 

 was 4 feet high. Of twenty-five speGimens collected by 



