meu: 
IX. Contributions towards a more complete knowledge of the Skeleton of the Primates. 
By Sr. Grorce Mivart, F.L.S., Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at St. Mary's 
Hospital. Part I. The Appendicular Skeleton of Simia. 
Read December 13th, 1866. 
[Pirates XXXV. to XLITI.] 
THE skeleton of the Orang-Outang, besides earlier notices, has been more or less 
carefully described by Owen', De Blainville*, and W. Vrolik*®. These descriptions, 
however, were anterior to the discovery of the Gorilla, which has necessitated fresh and 
more detailed examinations of and comparisons between the animals most nearly 
resembling Man. 
Such detailed and elaborate investigations have been instituted, and similar descrip- 
tions published, by Professor Owen* with regard to the skull and spinal column of the 
Gorilla, the Chimpanzee, and the Orang; and Professor Huxley’ has carried yet further 
investigations as to the condition presented by the skulls of those animals, and the 
modifications undergone by them during growth. 
The limb-bones also of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee have been thoroughly investigated 
by Professor Owen’; but the appendicular skeleton of the Orang has not yet been 
described with similar care and minuteness. 
Yet this highly interesting form, which in some respects resembles Man more than 
any other animal does, fully deserves to be made the subject of the most careful study, 
especially as it is more than probable that at no very distant date it will share the 
fate of the Dodo and Dinornis, while we may hope that tropical geology will one day 
cause a careful description and complete delineation of the bones of Simia to be much 
prized by some future paleontologist. 
The opportunity of furnishing such a description and such delineations is presented 
by the rich osteological collection of the British Museum, containing as it does eleven 
skeletons of the Orang-Outang, four of these being fully adult. 
I propose, then, to describe each bone of the Orang in detail, and to compare its 
characters with those of the Chimpanzee, the Gorilla, and Man. 
Scapula. (Plate XXXV.) 
The bladebone of the Orang is a triangular plate of bone, in some respects, 
' Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. i. 1835. ? Ostéographie, ‘‘ Primates : Pithecus,” p. 27, 1839. 
* Recherches d’Anat. Comp. sur le Chimpansé, 1841. * Trans. Zool. Soc. vols. iii. & iv. 
° Paper read before the Zoological Society on the 8th November, 1864. ° Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. v. 
