CHARACTERS OF THE MONKEY TRIBE. 113 



nor callosities of the buttocks. Two large membranous 

 bags cover the front of the neck under the skin, and open 

 into the larynx between the os hyoides and thyroid cartilage ; 

 a structure which spoils him for speaking. The thumb of 

 the hind hand has no nail ^, It is a mild and gentle ani- 

 mal, with some actions similar to ours, and some appear- 

 ances of human feelings. It soon becomes attached, and 

 imitates very quickly whatever we do. A state of captivity, 

 in climates and with diet unfriendly to its nature, is not 

 well calculated to develope its feelings and powers, or to 

 lead to a just estimate of its faculties and intelligence. 



The reports of travellers concerning its immense strength 

 and ferocity, its stature represented as equal or superior to 

 that of man ; its carrying off women and so forth, do not 

 accord either with the size or the dispositions of the crea- 

 ture, as observed in the examples brought into Europe. 

 They must probably be referred partly to exaggeration, and 

 partly to the circumstance of other large simiee (particularly 

 the pongo f of Borneo) having been confounded with the 

 true orang-utang. 



* The absence of the nail was ascertained by Camper, in seven out of 

 eight specimens ; the eighth had a very small nail on the thumb of the right 

 foot only. (Euvres^'i. p. 53, et scq. The animal is represented by Ed- 

 wards, Gleanings of Natural History,\. pi. 213, p. 6 and 7, with nails; 

 and it was so figured in the proof of an engraving submitted to the inspection 

 of Camper by AllAmand ; Additions aut. xv. de Buffon, p. 73. pi. 11, 

 On examining the animals, from which both these figures were taken, it was 

 found that they had no nails ; and the same is the case with that of Mr. 

 Abel. Such is the way in which nature is often improved by artists who 

 do not understand natural history ! Camper, de VOrang-utangt ch. 1. ^ 4. 



f In a Memoir read before the Academy of Sciences, but not yet published, 

 CuviER has endeavoured to prove that this tremendous creature is only the 

 adult S. Satyrus. They are both confined to the Island of Borneo ; and 

 they agree in the great length of the arms, and the prominence and strength 

 of the spinous processes of the cervical vertebra;. The skulls of both are in 

 the Hunterian Collection ; and are strongly contrasted to each other in the 

 relative proportions of the cranium and face, as well as in some other points. 

 If these are merely the differences between the young and the full-grown 

 animal,! know no other example of such a metamorphosis in the animal 

 kingdom. For the skull of the orang-utang see the plate of Blumenbach 



I 



