66 Zoological Society. 



" Protestant Mission-House, 

 Gaboon River, West Africa, 

 " My dear Sir, April 24, 1847. 



" Your known interest in the Zoology of Africa will find a ready 

 excuse I trust for the following communication, and lead you, in the 

 midst of various engagements, to give me a few moments in reply. 

 I am on my way to the United States in a vessel which, to complete 

 its voyage, had to touch at this point. I find it a region rich and 

 untried in all the departments of Natural History, besides being full 

 of interest in a far more important point of view, that of a missionary 

 field. I have found the existence of an animal of an extraordinary 

 character in this locality, and which I have reason to believe is un- 

 known to the naturalist. As yet I have been unable to obtain more 

 than a part of a skeleton. It belongs to the Simiadce, and is closely 

 allied to the Orangs proper. It reaches nearly if not quite the 

 height of five feet in the adult state and is of a large size. I am con- 

 siderably in doubt in regard to its identity with an animal said to 

 have been known to BufFon as a large species of orang-outan, under 

 the name of Pongo. It is referred to in a note on the 58th page 

 of the first volume of the American edition of Cuvier's ' llegne 

 Animal,' where he asserts that Pongo is a corruption of Boggo, 

 which is given in Africa to the chimpanzee or to the mandrill, and 

 was applied by BufFon to a pretended large species of orang-outan, 

 the mere imaginary product of his combinations. Then he says that 

 Wurmb, a naturalist of Batavia, transferred the name (Pongo) to a 

 moiikey in Borneo, which he thinks identical with Pithecus Satyrus 

 (the real orang-outan, a red orang of Asia). 



" My excellent friend, the Rev. J. L. Wilson, missionary of the 

 Am. Bd. of Comm. For. Missions to this part of Africa, thinks that 

 Pongo comes from * Mpongive,' the name of the tribe, and con- 

 sequently the region, on the banks of the Gaboon river near its 

 mouth, among which tribe he has resided for about five years. 

 The tribe once extended a great distance on the coast above and 

 below the river Gaboon, and the languages spoken for a great 

 distance both above and below are evidently but dialects, with the 

 Mpongive, of one language. Whence BufFon professed to receive 

 his specimen of * large species of orang-outan ' I know not ; but 

 this region and its vicinity indefinitely are the only points at which, 

 so far as I can ascertain, ' a large species of orang-outan ' has been 

 heard of except the chimpanzee, which is now well-known. I have 

 seen it mentioned that the skeleton of the Pongo of Borneo is in the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, of which Institution you are a Professor. 

 Now may I solicit your aid in this matter ? I will send you outlines 

 of the skull of the male and female (adults), and ask the favour of 

 a reply to my letter, stating whether you can identify them with 

 that of any animal you know of under the name of Pongo, or any 

 other cognomen. I have no correspondent in Paris ; if you feel 

 suflficient interest in the subject, will you do me the favour to as- 

 certain from that city the fact whether such skulls exist in any 

 cabinet there ? The natives state that a young one was caught 



