MAMMALOGY. 



The Naturalists of the present day, as we have just before 

 observed, admit two species of the Orang-Outangs, one of which is 



the possibility of takingitsdimeiisiens,but we shall presume from its general 

 appearance this statement may be correct. The upper part of this object 

 consists of the trunk, with the head, breast, shoulders, and arms of a Simia 

 of the Orang tribe, the true Simia of lUiger * ; the lower part from the 

 breast downwards is that of a fish complete, wanting only the head : and the 

 aspect of the whole at once suggests the idea of an ape, emerging from the 

 mouth of a fish much smaller than can be considered sufficiently capa- 

 cious to contain it. The comparative disproportion of these objects 

 so combined is in part concealed by the incurvation given to the pos- 

 terior end of the fish, the tail part of which is turned up laterally or on 

 one side of the body, on the region lying between the place of the anal and 

 the second dorsal fin. A better idea will be conveyed of the disparity 

 of the two material portions of this deformity from the outline of that object 

 sketched at the bottom of the illustrrative miscellaneous plate, No. 59 of 

 the present work. 



Looking upon this heterogeneous object the naturalist is at once struck 

 with the total want of knowledge as well as clumsy workmanship of the 

 fabricator. To say little of such an anomalous contradiction to every analogy 

 in nature as such a compound of the mammalia and the piscivorine tribes 

 present, there is no ingenuity of contrivance to palliate the transition; they 

 are abrupt, and at once shew that the body of one animal has been engraft- 

 ed into another. No small degree of pains we must admit has been be- 

 stowed upon the unfortunate biped, the skin of the face having been tor- 

 tured into a form of peculiar extravagance. We are told that it has been 



abundant reason to affirm, that there must be several species of this tribe of fishes !!! 

 " Sirenem in flumine vasto Cuama ad caput Bonae Spei, media parte fuisse formae 

 humanae capite 'scilicet rotundo, thoraci sine coUo immediate juncto, auribus, oculis. 

 labris ac dentibus nostris plane similem describit, mammillasque pressas lac emisse 

 candidissimum, alium in Japponiae Oceano, carne humana moUi et alba non squamis 

 tectam, esse captam, quoq; memnit, &c. Sect. 3. n. 11. 



* Considering the great latitude with which the term Simia is sometimes em- 

 ployed, it may not be improper to observe that some modern naturalists, after the 

 example of Professor Illiger, restrict the term to that particular family which com- 

 prehends only the two species of Orang-Outangs. The apes, baboons, monkeys, &c. 

 are not Simiae of these writers but Hylobates, LasiopygUj CercopithecuSj ^fc." 



