I TYSON'S PYGMIE 11 



back was covered with black hair. It is plainly a 

 young Chimpanzee. 



In the meanwhile, the existence of other, 

 Asiatic, man-like Apes became known, but at 

 first in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius 

 (1658) gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous 

 account 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 coadjutor Cowper, that we owe the first 

 account of a man- like ape which has any pre- 

 tensions to scientific accuracy and completeness. 

 The treatise entitled, " Orang-outang, sive Homo 

 Sylvestris; or the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared 

 with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man' 1 

 published by the Royal Society in 1699, is, 

 indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and has, in 

 some respects, served as a model to subsequent 

 inquirers. This " Pygmie," 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 on all four, 'twas 



