18 
sent some sketches of it to M. Soemmering at Mayence, 
which are better calculated, however, to give an idea of the 
form than of the real size of the parts.” 
These sketches have been reproduced by Fischer and by 
Luce, and bear date 1783, Soemmering having received 
them in 1784. Had either of Von Wurmb’s specimens 
reached Holland, they would hardly have been unknown at this 
time to Camper, who, however, goes on to say :—“ It appears 
that since this, some more of these monsters have been cap- 
tured, for an entire skeleton, very badly set up, which had 
been sent to the Museum of the Prince of Orange, and which 
I saw only on the 27th of June, 1784, was more than four feet 
high. I examined this skeleton again on the 19th December, 
1785, after it had been excellently put to rights by the 
ingenious Onymus.” 
It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, which is doubt- 
less that which has always gone by the name of Wurmb’s 
Pongo, is not that of the animal described by him, though 
unquestionably similar in all essential points. 
Camper proceeds to note some of the most important features 
of this skeleton; promises to describe it in detail by-and- 
bye; and is evidently in doubt as to the relation of this 
great ‘Pongo’ to his “ petit Orang.” 
The promised further investigations were never carried 
out; and so it happened that the Pongo of Von Wurmb took 
its place by the side of the Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as 
a fourth and colossal species of man-like Ape. And indeed 
nothing could look much less like the Chimpanzees or the 
Orangs, then known, than the Pongo; for all the specimens 
_of Chimpanzee and Orang which had been observed were 
small of stature, singularly human in aspect, gentle and docile ; 
while Wurmb’s Pongo was a monster almost twice their size, 
of vast strength’ and fierceness, and very brutal in expression ; 
its great projecting muzzle, armed with strong teeth, being 
further disfigured by the outgrowth of the cheeks into fleshy 
lobes. 
