1855.] Remarks on the different species of Orang-utan. 527 



With the grand series of skulls and skeletons of adult Orang- 

 utans now subjected to examination, amounting to twelve in all (viz. 

 3 males and 4 females of Pithecus Brookei or Mias Bambi, 1 male 

 and 1 old female of P. satyrus or M. Pappan, one old male of 

 the P. curt us or M. Chapin ?, an old female of the P. morio or M. 

 Kassar, and the adolescent female with short fore-arms, provisionally 

 designated P. Owenii, — in addition to Prof. Owen's excellent litho- 

 graphs of the male Kassar and of male and female Bambi in the 

 Trans. Zool. Soc., Vols. I and II), the observer is first struck with 

 the very obvious and conspicuous distinctness of the comparatively 

 puny Mias Kassar, and of the adolescent small skeleton, from all 

 the rest. The next glance suffices to separate the Bambi, Pappan, 

 and P. curtus : the last being quite as thoroughly distinguished 

 apart by the tout ensemble of its appearance, as the Pappan is by its 

 conspicuously double-crested vertex. I should think that no zoolo- 

 gist, accustomed to the discrimination of specifical characters, would 

 hesitate, with the present series of skulls before him, to acknow- 

 ledge the distinctness of each of these three ; but such an observer 

 would ponder for awhile over the remarkable female Bambi skull 

 with enormous and vertically oblong orbits, aud would doubtless 

 hesitate in regarding it as specifically identical with the old female 

 Rambi of small size ; so great is the contrast between them. Pre- 

 suming, however, that he arrived at the conclusion here ventured 

 upon, it still follows that the Bambi is subject to an extraordinary 

 amount of variation for a wild animal ; and this, although it may 

 not invalidate the opinion of its distinctness from the Pappan and 

 P. curtus, nevertheless prompts a reconsideration of the grounds 

 for the view formerly expressed, with regard to the specifical dis- 

 tinctness of the small specimen having short fore-arms. Irom the 

 detached state of the epiphyses of its limb-bones, it is certain that that 

 specimen was not full-grown ; and as those of the ulnce at least (as 

 shewn by the skeleton of the adult male Bambi, and also by that of 

 the male Pappan,) are the last to become anchylosed, it should follow 

 that the fore-arm continues to increase in length after the upper 

 arm and the leg had ceased to grow : but the difference is still too 

 great to be thus accounted for satisfactorily : and upon re-comparison 

 of this specimen with the undoubtedly aged female Kassar, I deem it 



