392 QUADRUMANA. 



in the Sumatran and the Bornean animals, the ungueal phalanx of the 

 hind thumb is sometimes absent, sometimes present, in both sexes. In 

 a specimen described by Camper, the thumb on one foot was perfect ; 

 on the other, destitute of the last joint ; and M. Temminck states 

 that he has examined six individuals, of different ages, all shot in 

 their natural state of freedom, without being able to discover the least 

 trace of a nail on the posterior thumbs ; a seventh individual, which he 

 had known in captivity, had a nail on the left posterior thumb, but not on 

 the right ; and two skeletons of young individuals which died in mena- 

 geries, and form part of the anatomical collection of the Museum of the 

 Pays Bas, have nails on both the posterior thumbs. 



It has been asserted that the Bornean Pongo is furnished with 

 cheek-pouches, as well as with laryngal sacculi ; and the genus Pongo, of 

 Lacepede, is thus characterized ; but this is a palpable error. 



It has farther been stated, that the Sumatran Pongo differs from 

 the Bornean, in being of a much lighter colour, namely, sandy rufous, and 

 also in great superiority of size : the description of specimens examined 

 by the Author of this work will prove how little reliance is to be placed 

 on the former distinction. With regard to the latter, some observations are 

 requisite. Five feet is assigned as the greatest height of the Bornean 

 Orang ; the male in the Paris Museum would not exceed four feet, if 

 placed in an upright attitude ; and the skeleton of an adult female, in 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, London, is only four feet one inch and 

 a half. According, however, to Dr. Abel, the male Orang killed at 

 Ramboom, on the north-west coast of Sumatra (the account of which 

 is in the Asiatic Res. vol. xv. 1826), exceeded seven feet. It is remark- 

 able, however, that the span of the arms and hands of this specimen 

 was only eight feet two inches, and the length of the foot, from the heel 

 to the end of the middle toe, fourteen inches. Now, in the specimen of 

 the Sumatran female, in the museum of the Zoological Society, the span 

 of the arms and hands is about seven feet two inches, and the length 

 of the foot, ten inches and a half; while the height of the animal, when 

 alive, could not have exceeded three feet six inches. In the specimen 

 of a young female Orang, from Sumatra, which the Author had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining (Oct. 1836), the length of which, from the top of 

 the head to the heel, was three feet seven inches and three quarters, 

 the span of the arms, across the chest, was six feet ; and the foot, from 

 the heel to the end of the middle toe, nine inches and three-quarters. 



In this specimen, the incisors and canines were deciduary ; and, of the 

 four molars on each side, the two first were deciduary, the two last, per- 

 manent. The hind thumbs were destitute of the ungueal phalanx. The 

 feet, as already stated, measured, in the specimen described by Abel, 

 fourteen inches ; but, to shew that the Bornean Orang is as large, it may 



