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IX. Contributions towards a more complete knowledge of the Skeleton of the Primates. 

 By St. George Mivart, F.L.S., Lecturer on Conqmrative Anatonuj at St. Mary's 

 Hospital. Part I. The Aptpendicular Skeletmi of Simla. 



Read December 13th, 1866. 



[Plates XXXV. to XLIII.] 



XHE skeleton of the Orang-Outang, besides earlier notices, has been more or less 

 carefully described by Owen', De Blainville", and W. Vrolikl These descriptions, 

 however, were anterior to the discovery of the Gorilla, v/Yiich 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 mucli 

 prized by some future palaeontologist. 



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. " Osteographie, " Primates : Pithecus," p. 27, 1839. 



^ Rechcrchcs d'Anat. Comp. sur le C'himpanse, 1841. ' Trans. Zool. Soc. vols. iii. i iv. 



' Paper read before the Zoological Society on the Sth November, 1864. ' Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. v. 



