PLATE LVII. 



the rufousJiind, the subject of our more immediate observation at the 

 present, the other is the Black Orang-Outang, a native of 



apparently dried and preserved by exposure to the sun ; that it has been so 

 dried may be correct or otherwise, but this will not so well explain the in- 

 troduction of the wax-like cement or composition which appears to have 

 been profusely employed in the distension of the skin, and in supplying 

 deficiencies which the skin does not cover ; the inflation of the cheeks, the 

 subfalcated nasal organ, the lips and eyes, the palms of the hands, all these 

 have been formed in vain if the design of its Asiatic contriver had really 

 been to deceive the eye or discrimination of an European naturalist. 

 Under the disguise of its distortions we perceive the Orang-Outang, and 

 it is offering some insult to our understandings to affirm " that these dis- 

 tortions prove that the animal had died in great agony." We are directed 

 to observe the head and remark the similarity it bears to that of the 

 human being, we do so, and regardless of those distortions, find that it 

 bears exactly the same similitude to man as the Orang-Outang. That the 

 teeth are those of the Orang-Outang can no more be doubted than that its 

 exterior covering appertains to that animal. From the preposterous man- 

 ner in which the jaws are advanced in this pretended Mermaid, they sug- 

 gest at first the possibility of the jaws being those of some larger animal of 

 the ape tribe inserted into the mouth in order to increase the novelty of the 

 spectacle : we cannot pretend to say that something of this kind has not 

 been done, but if it has, we make no doubt it is only the spoils of an older 

 animal of the same species that has been so introduced. The Orang-Outang 

 which Mr. Abel brought alive to London about five years ago, as we have 

 elsewhere observed, was y oung,but with every allowance for the extension of 

 the skin in stuffing, the animal appears to have been rather larger than 

 the one whose remains we now contemplate could possibly have been ; 

 and yet from an inspection of the skeleton-head of Mr. AbeFs animal, now in 

 the museum of the College of Surgeons, it appears the teeth are larger in this 

 object before us, an apparent indication at least of a growth more advanced. 

 The foremost of these teeth are conspicuous, such as the four denies or front 

 teeth, the four laniarii or canine teeth, and some of the molares, but it is 

 difficult to distinguish those which lie behind : they are stated to be twelve 

 in number, i. e. three on each side in both jaws, and this enables us to arrive 

 with tolerable certainty at the age of the animal to which the jaws belonged ; 

 it was not younger than the specimen brought to England by Mr. Abel, 

 for in that subject, when it died, only three of the molares had appear- 

 ed. In the adult animal, as we perceive from the head of another preserved 



