MAMMIFEROUS ANIMALS. 311 



being obliged to take for granted, what others 

 have written before him, or to obtain his infor- 

 mation from the unscientific traveller, who, from 

 the love of the marvellous, or from allowing his 

 imagination to get the better of his judgment, has 

 often given very extraordinary accounts of the 

 animals he has seen in their wild and native 

 state, and which, subsequent experience has not 

 confirmed ; and partly to those animals which 

 have been actually brought under the eye of the 

 man of science, being too young to determine 

 what their real form and character would have 

 been, had they reached the adult state. 



Thus Linnaeus, whose definitions in general 

 are so clear and distinct, was led, not only to 

 believe the most exaggerated accounts of the 

 Ourang Outang, but almost to allow him one of 

 the most important physical qualifications of 

 man, that of speech. And Buffon, with other 

 extraordinary attributes, had led himself to be- 

 lieve, that the erect position when he walks, is 

 his natural attitude; while he has confounded 

 the Ourang Outang, a native of Asia, and appa- 

 rently a mild and docile animal, with the Chim- 

 pansee, Pongo, or large African ape, whose fero- 

 city of character, and ungovernable passions, are 

 stated to render travelling dangerous, in the 

 countries which he inhabits. 



We will give Buffon's own account of the ani- 

 mal which he witnessed, as it will serve to shew 



