48 MAMMALIA. 



fact of their being drawn from young individuals only ; and there is 

 every reason to believe, that, with age, their muzzle becomes much 

 more prominent. The body is covered with coarse red hair, the face 

 blueish, and the hinder thumbs very short compared with the toes. 

 His lips are susceptible of a singular elongation, and possess great 

 mobility. His history has been much disfigured by mingling it with 

 that of the other great monkeys, that of the Chimpanse, in particu- 

 lar. After a strict and critical examination, I have ascertained that 

 the Ourang-Outang inhabits the most eastern countries only, such as 

 Malabar, Cochin China, and particularly the great island of Borneo, 

 whence he has been occasionally brought to Europe by the way of 

 Java. When young, and such as he appears to us in his captivity, 

 he is a mild and gentle animal, easily rendered tame and affection- 

 ate, which is enabled by his conformation to imitate many of our ac- 

 tions, but whose intelligence does not appear to be as great as is 

 reported, not much sui-passing even that of the Dog. Camper dis- 

 covered, and has well described two membranous sacs in this animal 

 which communicate with the glottis, that produce a hoarseness of his 

 voice — he was mistaken, however, in imagining that the nails are 

 always wanting on his hinder thumbs. 



There is a monkey in Borneo, hitherto known only by his skeleton, 

 called the Potigo*, which so closely resembles the Ourang-Outang in 

 the proportions of all his parts, and by the arrangement of the fora- 

 mina and sutures of the head, that, notwithstanding the great pro- 

 minence of the muzzle, the smallness of the cranium, and the height 

 of the branches of the lower jaw, we are tempted to consider him an 

 adult — if not of the species of the Ourang-Outang, at least of one 

 very nearly allied to it. The length of the arms, that of the apo- 

 physes of the cervical vertebree, and the tuberosity of his calcaneum, 

 may enable him to assume the vertical position, and walk upon two feet. 

 He is the largest monkey known, and in size is nearly equal to Man. 

 Mr. J. Harwood, in the Trans. Lin. Soc. XV. p. 471, describes 

 the feet of an ourang, fifteen English inches in length. This an- 

 nounces a very great stature in the animal to which they belonged, 

 and would have led him to the belief that the Pongo is the adult 

 Ourang-Outang, were it not that the skeleton of the Pongo in the 

 College of Surgeons, at London, has one lumbar vertebra more than 

 those of the Ourangs. This, however, is no objection — the same 

 variation is frequently observed in the human subject. 

 The arras of the remaining Ourangs reach only to the knee. They 



* Audeb. Singes, pi. anat. 2. This name of Pongo, a corruption of Boggo, which 

 is given in Africa to the Chimpanse, or to the Mandrill, was applied by Buffon to a 

 pretended large species of Ourang-Outang — the mere imaginary product of his com- 

 binations. Wurmb, a naturalist of Batavia, has transferred it to this animal, which 

 he was the first to describe, and of which BufTon never had any idea. See Mem. of 

 the Soc. of Batavia, vol. ii. p. 245. The thought, that it might be an adult Ourang, 

 struck me on examining the head of an ordinary Ourang, whose muzzle projected 

 much more than those of the very young specimens hitherto described. T described 

 it in a memoir read before the Acad, des Sciences in 1818. Tilesius and Rudolphi 

 appear also to have had it. See the Mem. of the Acad, of Berlin, 1824, p. 131. 



