ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE 

 MAN-LIKE APES 



ANCIENT traditions, when tested by the severe processes 

 of modern investigation, commonly enough fade away into 

 mere dreams : but it is singular how often the dream turns 

 out to have been a half-waking one, presaging a reality. 

 Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the geologist : the 

 Atlantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a 

 western world : and though the quaint forms of Centaurs 

 and Satyrs have an existence only in the realms of art, 

 creatures approaching man more nearly than they in 

 essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal as the 

 goat's or horse's half of the mythical compound, are now 

 not only known, but notorious. 



I have not met with any notice of one of these MAN-LIKE 

 APES of earlier date than that contained in Pigafetta's 

 Description of the Kingdom of Congo,* drawn up from the 

 notes of a Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez, and published 

 in 1598. The tenth chapter of this work is entitled " De 

 Animalibus quse in hac provincia reperiuntur," and contains 

 a brief passage to the effect that " in the Songan country, 

 on the banks of the Zaire, there are multitudes of apes, 

 which afford great delight to the nobles by imitating human 

 gestures." As this might apply to almost any kind of 

 apes, I should have thought little of it, had not the brothers 

 De Bry, whose engravings illustrate the work, thought fit. 

 in their eleventh Argumentum, to figure two of these " Simiae 

 magnatum deliciae." So much of the plate as contains 

 these apes is faithfully copied in the woodcut (Fig. 1), and 

 it will be observed that they are tail-less, long-armed, and 



* REGNUM CONGO : hoc est VERA DESCRIPTIO REGNI AFRICANI 



QUOD TAM AB INCOLIS QUAM LUSITANIS CONGUS APPELLATUR, per 



Philippum Pigafettam, olim ex Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua 

 Italica excerpta, mim Latio sermone donata ab August. Cassiod. 

 Reinio. Iconibus et imaginibus rerum riiemorabilium quasi vivis, 

 opera et industria Joan. Theodori et Joan. Israelis de Bry, fratrum 

 exornata. Francofurti, MDXCVIII. 



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