176 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF 
The size of the skull of that specimen, from Borneo, which Mr. Nicholls 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, ina 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 
regards 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 pl. 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 Simia Satyrus 
of Linneus 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. 
