xiv] THE SUMATRAN ORANG 



blance to themselves. It is not easy to imagine what ideas the 

 orang-utans may form of us. I will not, however, deny that in 

 some instances they may have a notion of the effects of a gun, and 

 associate the possibility of being struck by a missile with the presence 

 of man. The experience of these creatures in such a matter may 

 vary in different parts of the country and be strictly individual, 

 as their degree of intelligence may also vary individually. And 

 truly the orang-utans, who are so generally variable, also present, 

 independent of age or sex, a remarkable variation in their cranial 

 capacity; whence it maj^be argued that their intellectual develop- 

 ment cannot be uniform. Thus Professor Giglioli, in his studies 

 on the orang-utan crania which I collected (Op. cit. pp. 138-9), 

 calls attention to the small cerebral capacity of the female Mayas 

 which I shot on April 30, 1867 (that from which I took the 

 foetus which was preserved). This female may be considered as 

 microcephalous, its cranial capacity not reaching 304 cubic centim. ; 

 whilst that of the young male which I killed at the same time, and 

 which I took to be her offspring, gave a cerebral capacity of 457 

 cubic centim., i.e. more than the maximum (456 cubic centim.) 

 found by Professor Giglioli in the adult Mayas Kassa. Another 

 male Mayas Kassa of the same age as the one just mentioned, 

 or showing, at all events, the same stage of dental development, 

 had a cranial capacity of 346 cubic centim. 



The maximum cerebral capacity found in my series of orang- 

 utan skulls was that of a perfectly adult Mayas Tj aping, which 

 measured 503 cubic centim. 



• The orang-utan inhabits not only Borneo, but Sumatra, where 

 both the race with cheek expansions and that without them are 

 also found. In Sumatra, however, these animals are certainly much 

 less abundant. During a stay of several months I made there in 

 the province of Padang, in the year 1878, I never even heard them 

 mentioned. It has been met with in the province of Tapannuli 

 at Rambum, and at Siboga on the west coast, near the equator. 1 



In the Zoological Museum at Florence is the skeleton of a young 

 orang-utan, described as coming from Palembang, on the east coast 

 of Sumatra. It is remarkable on account of the extraordinary 

 curvature of the second phalanges of the toes, and for the length of 

 the first, which is much greater than that I have seen in any of the 

 skeletons of specimens from Borneo of a corresponding age. I do 

 not, however, see any reason for separating specifically the Suma- 

 tran from the Bornean orang-utan. 



The presence of this anthropoid in both islands is certainly one 

 of the best arguments towards proving a past land connexion 



1 Mr. N. Ridley thinks it possible that the orang exists in the Malay 

 Peninsula, where the natives appear to know it by the name of " Mowas," 

 which may, perhaps, be the same as " Mayas " (Cf. Natural Science, vi. p. 23). 



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