308 PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE, 



the animal is standing upright The orang does not often 

 assume an upright attitude, however. " It seldom attempts 

 to walk on the hind feet alone, and when it does the hands 

 are invariably employed for the purpose of steadying its 

 tottering equilibrium, touching the ground lightly on each 

 side as it proceeds, and by this means recovering the lost 

 balance of the body." The gorilla uses his hands differently. 

 He can scarcely be said to walk on all-fours, because he 

 does not place the inside of the hand on the ground, but 

 walks on the knuckles, evidently trying to keep the fore part 

 of the body as high as possible. " The muzzle is somewhat 

 long, the mouth ill-shaped, the lips thin and protuberant ; 

 the ears are very small, the chin scarcely recognizable, and 

 the nose only to be recognized by the nostrils. The face, 

 ears, and inside of the hands of the orang are naked and of 

 a brick-red colour ; the fore parts are also but thinly covered 

 with hair; but the head, shoulders,, back, and extremities 

 are thickly clothed with long hair of dark wine-red colour, 

 directed forwards on the crown of the head and upwards 

 towards the elbows on the forearms." 



The orang-outang changes remarkably in character and 

 appearance as he approaches full growth. " Though exhibit- 

 ing in early youth a rotundity of the cranium and a height of 

 forehead altogether peculiar, and accompanied at the same 

 time with a gentleness of disposition and a gravity of 

 manners which contrast strongly with the petulant and 

 irascible temper of the lower orders of quadrumanous mam- 

 mals, the orang-outang in its adult state is even remarkable 

 for the flatness of its retiring forehead, the great develop- 

 ment of the superorbital and occipital crests, the prominence 

 of its jaws, the remarkable size of its canine teeth, and the 

 whole form of the skull, which from the globular shape of 

 the human head, as in the young specimen, assumes all the 

 forms and characters belonging to that of a large carnivorous 

 animal. The extraordinary contrasts thus presented in the 

 form of the skull at different epochs of the same animal's 

 life were long considered as the characters of distinct species; 



