176 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF 



The size of the skull of that specimen, from Borneo, which Mr. NichoUs says was 

 given him, " if he remembers right, as that of a male Pappan, full-grown, but not 

 aged," and which skull Mr. Blyth states to be fully equal or even to exceed in size that 

 of the foregoing single-ridged skull, proves it to be, in my opinion, also of the male sex, 

 in which it illustrates the variety without the median crest, the temporal ridges " being an 

 inch apart where most approximated" (p. 8). Mr. Blyth founds his belief that the specimen 

 presented by Mr. Nicholls was a female, on modifications of the pelvis ; but I doubt 

 whether the long and flat ossa innominata of the great Bornean Apes are safe guides for 

 determining sexual characters. The skeleton from Sumatra, in the Mus. Coll. Chir., 

 No. 5050', to which he refers, p. 10, is that of an adolescent male animal. I have not 

 yet received any good evidence, or proof, that the canines are developed to the degree 

 presented in that skeleton, in any female individual of the large species of Orang. 



Mr. Blyth has recorded a very remarkable and interesting variety presented by an 

 " adolescent female resembling Pithecus Morio in size, but having a much shorter fore- 

 arm and more anthropoid conformation of skull," of which he gives a sketch of the side 

 and front view in his plates 9 and 10. 



On this subject I would remark, that, in a genus characterized by so unusual a length 

 of upper limbs as Pithecus, or the Orang-kind, we ought not to be surprised to find, as 

 an individual variety, an arrest of development of those limbs ; the abnormality, as it 

 I'egards the genus, being a nearer approach to the general type. 



Much more evidence than a single specimen is required to establish our confidence 

 in the existence of a propagating variety of shorter-armed Orang, — still more research 

 to prove it to be a species. The cranium, indeed, shows (in pi. 10 of Mr. Blyth's 

 memoir) a shorter and more receding chin ; but this part of the lower jaw is subject to 

 variation in other Orangs. 



When we review the varieties, already recorded, in the large Orang {Pithecus Satyrus) 

 of Borneo and Sumatra, especially in regard to the presence or absence of the nail and 

 its phalanx in the hallux ; the occasional supernumerary molar tooth ; the length of 

 arm ; the intermuscular ridges and crests of the skull ; the shape of the orbits ; the 

 size and other conditions of the nasal bones ; the fore-and-aft extent of the molar series, 

 and the profile contour of the skull ; we derive additional proof that the Simla Satyrus 

 of Linnosus is subject to a greater amount of variety in a state of nature, than has hitherto 

 been observed in any other Quadrumanous species. As to the primitive originality of the 

 Pithecus Morio in Borneo, I by no means entertain a decided opinion. Had the whole 

 dental series been proportionally smaller, as it is in the Troglodytes niger, in comparison 

 with the Trogl. Gorilla, there might have been more reason for concluding as to the 

 distinction of the species. For I have observed, that in the shorter or dwarf varieties 

 of the human species, the teeth do not diminish in size in the ratio of the general 

 stature. 



' See the description of the skeleton in my Catalogue of the ' Osteology ' in that Museum, vol. ii. p. 759. 



