1853.] Remarks on the different species of Orang-utan. 369 



Remarks on the different species of Orang-utan. — By E. Blyth, Esq?. 



To Mr. W. W. Nicholls of Sarawak, the Society is indebted for 

 the nearly perfect skeleton of an adult wild Orang-utan, of the pecu- 

 liar species known to the inhabitants of Borneo, according to Sir 

 James Brooke, by the name Mias Rappan ; and which, together 

 with other skulls and skeletons of adult Orangs in our museum, 

 and the exquisite lithographs of others, again, published by Professor 

 Owen, fully bears out the opinion of Sir J. Brooke expressed in a 

 letter to the Zoological Society and published in the ' Proceedings' 

 of that Society for 1841, p. 55, of the existence of three distinct 

 species of Orang-utan in Borneo. 



Professor Owen had previously distinguished his Pithecus morio 

 (Mias Kassar of Brooke) from the great Orang then known to him, 

 from specimens to which I had the pleasure of first calling his 

 attention, and which are admirably figured in the ' Transactions of 

 the Zoological Society,' Yol. II, pi. 30 to 34 inclusive ; and from 

 certain differences observable in skulls of great Orangs compared 

 and figured by him, believed or known respectively to be from 

 Borneo or Sumatra, the same zoologist has indicated what appeared 

 to him to be at least local varieties, one proper to each of those 

 islands, and he applies the names P. Abelii to that of Sumatra and 

 P. Wermbii to that of Borneo, of course under the impression that 

 the great Sumatran Orang referred to was identical with that describ- 

 ed by Dr. Clarke Abel from Sumatra in As. Res. XV, 489. 



A huge skull of an adult male Orang, undoubtedly from Borneo, 

 is figured in Trans. Zool. Soc. II, pi. 31 and 32 ; and that of an 

 adult female (?), said to be from Sumatra, in the same work, Yol. I, 

 pi. 53 and 54. The differences between these skulls are consider- 

 able : and they are, to some extent, borne out in a huge male skull 

 marked from Sumatra and in an aged female skull marked from 

 Borneo, in this Society's museum.* In both of the latter, however, 

 the characters are throughout intermediate. The zygomatic suture 



* Presented by Major Gregory in 1838 (vide J. A. S. VII, 669) ; the Sumatran 

 male skull, however, having been for some years reserved. 



