66 Zoological Society. 
‘Protestant Mission-House, — 
Gaboon River, West Africa, _ 
‘« My dear Sir, April 24, 1847. 
‘Your known interest in the Zoology of Africa will find a ready 
excuse I trust for the following communication, and lead you, in the 
midst of various engagements, to give me a few moments in reply. 
Iam on my way to the United States in a vessel which, to complete 
its voyage, had to touch at this point. I find it a region rich and — 
untried in all the departments of Natural History, besides being full: 
of interest in a far more important point of view, that of a missionary 
field. I have found the existence of an animal of an extraordinary 
character in this locality, and which I have reason to believe is un- 
known to the naturalist. As yet I have been unable to obtain more 
than a part of a skeleton. It belongs to the Simiade, and is closely 
allied to the Orangs proper. It reaches nearly if not quite the 
height of five feet in the adult state and is of a large size. I am con- 
siderably in doubt in regard to its identity with an animal said to. 
have been known to Buffon as a large species of orang-outan, under 
the name of Pongo. It is referred to in a note on the 58th page 
of the first volume of the American edition of Cuvier’s ‘ Régne 
Animal,’ where he asserts that Pongo is a corruption of Boggo, 
which is given in Africa to the chimpanzee or to the mandrill, and 
was applied by Buffon to a pretended large species of orang-outan, 
the mere imaginary product of his combinations. Then he says that 
Wurmb, a naturalist of Batavia, transferred the name (Pongo) to a 
monkey in Borneo, which he thinks identical with Pithecus Satyrus. 
(the real orang-outan, a red orang of Asia). 
** My excellent friend, the Rev. J. L. Wilson, missionary of the 
Am. Bd. of Comm. For. Missions to this part of Africa, thinks that 
Pongo comes from ‘ Mpongive,’ the name of the tribe, and con- 
sequently the region, on the banks of the Gaboon river near its 
mouth, among which tribe he has resided for about five years. 
The tribe once extended a great distance on the coast above and 
below the river Gaboon, and the languages spoken for a great 
distance both above and below are evidently but dialects, with the 
Mpongive, of one language. Whence Buffon professed to receive 
his specimen of ‘large species of orang-outan’ I know not; but 
this region and its vicinity indefinitely are the only points at which, 
so far as I can ascertain, ‘a large species of orang-outan’ has been 
heard of except the chimpanzee, which is now well-known. I have 
seen it mentioned that the skeleton of the Pongo of Borneo is in the 
Royal College of Surgeons, of which Institution you are a Professor. © 
Now may I solicit your aid in this matter? I will send you outlines 
of the skull of the male and female (adults), and ask the favour of 
a reply to my letter, stating whether you can identify them with 
that of any animal you know of under the name of Pongo, or any 
ether cognomen. JI have no correspondent in Paris; if you feel 
sufficient interest in the subject, will you do me the favour to as- 
certain from that city the fact whether such skulls exist in any 
cabinet there? The natives state that a young one was caught 
