26 THE MAN-LIKE APES I 



Holland, they would hardly have been unknown 

 at this time to Camper, who, however, goes on to 

 say : " It appears that since this, some more of 

 these monsters have been captured, for an entire 

 skeleton, very badly set up, which had been sent 

 to the Museum of the Prince of Orange, and 

 which I saw only on the 27th of June, 1784, 

 was more than four feet high. I examined this 

 skeleton again on the 19th December, 1785, 

 after it had been excellently put to rights by the 

 ingenious Onymus." 



It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, 

 which is doubtless that which has always gone by 

 the name of Wurmb's Pongo, is not that of the 

 animal described by him, though unquestionably 

 similar in all essential points. 



Camper proceeds to note some of the most 

 important features of this skeleton ; promises to 

 describe it in detail by-and-bye ; and is evidently 

 in doubt as to the relation of this great " Pongo " 

 to his " petit Orang." 



The promised further investigations were never 

 carried out ; and so it happened that the Pongo 

 of Von Wurmb took its place by the side of the 

 Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and 

 colossal species of man-like Ape. And indeed 

 nothing could look much less like the Chim- 

 panzees or the Orangs, then known, than the 

 Pongo ; for all the specimens of Chimpanzee and 

 Orang which had been observed were small of 



