iOi HISTORY OF ""■ 



From this slight survey it may be easily seen that one general 

 description will not serve for animals so very different from each 

 other ; nevertheless, it will be fatiguing to the last degree, as 

 their varieties are so numerous, and their differences so small, 

 to go through a particular description of each. In this case it 

 will be best to give a history of the foremost in each class ; at 

 the same time marking the distinctions in every species. By 

 this we shall avoid a tedious repetition of similar characters, and 

 consider the manners and the oddities of this fantastic tribe in 

 general points of view ?, where we shall perceive how nearly they 

 approach to the human figure, and how little they benefit by the 

 approximation. The foremost of the ape kind is 



THE ORAN-OUTANG, OR WILD MAN OF THE WOODS. 



This name seems to have been given to various animals, 

 agreeing in one common character of walking upright, but com- 

 ing from different countries, and of very different proportions and 

 powers. The troglodyte of Bontius, the drill of Purchas, 

 and the pigmy of Tyson, have all received this general name : and 

 have been ranked, by some naturalists, under one general descrip- 

 tion.* If we read the accounts of many remote travellers, 

 under this name we are presented with a formidable animal, 

 from six to eight feet high ; if we examine the books of such as 

 have described it nearer home, we find it a pigmy not above 

 three. In this diversity we must be content to blend their vari- 

 ous descriptions into one general account ; observing, at the 



♦ The Troglodyte, or Chimpanse, is a distinct animal from the Oran-Oa- 

 tang. The Chimpanse seldom measures more than from two feet and a half 

 to three feet in lieight ; and its hair is dark blown, or blackish. Its head is 

 conic, the body brawny, the back and shoulders are hairy, and the rest of 

 the body smooth. 



Two Champanses were sent from the forests of the Carnatic by a coasting 

 vessel, as a present to the Governor of Bombay. They, like the rest of tlie 

 species, had many human actions, and seemed, by then- melancholy, to have 

 a rational sense of tlietr captivity. They were scarcely two feet iiigh, but 

 walked erect, and very nearly resembled the human form. The female was 

 taken ill during the voyage, and died ; and the male, exhibiting every de- 

 monstration of grief, refused to eat, and lived only two days afterwards. 



Both in face and form, the Cliimpanso has a closer approximation to hu- 

 manity than the Oran-Outang. Its habitat is confined to intertropii-al 

 Africa — that of the Oran-Outang is Asiatic. 



