MAMMALOGY. 



Africa. Although perfectly distinct from each other, as will be shewn 

 hereafter, the history of these two animals have been so intimately 



in the museum of the College of Surgeons, there are five molarcs, so that 

 we may take the medium of three molares to indicate the growth of an 

 animal of this kind about two or three years old, a circumstance that 

 sufficiently explains the worn appearance of the incisive teeth, which hos 

 been considered as an evidence of its being a full-grown Mermaid ! I 



The description of the head and the conclusions drawn from it are al- 

 together curious. The head is round, and forms, particularly behind, a 

 striking similitude to that of man ; the sutures cannot be well traced through 

 the integuments, but their existence is sufficiently indicated. The os 

 frontis or forehead has less depth and breadth of outline than the human 

 skull and more than that of the Baboon. The ossa malarum or cheek- 

 bones are extremely high, as in the Hottentot. The eyes are large and 

 prominent. The nose is much more elevated than in the monkey tribe, and 

 its advanced position more so even than in many Hottentots. The upper 

 and lower jaws not so prominent as in the ape, but flat like those of the 

 human species." All this, with the modifications the object has undergone 

 in the process of preservation, may be readily reduced to the Orang-Outang. 

 The ossa malarum or cheek-bones are a striking character, they are really, 

 higher in the Orang-Outang than in the Hottentot ; upon the magnitude of 

 the " eyes" it is needless to advert, they are nothing more than balls of com- 

 position, the size of which as well as prominency must have depended on 

 the pleasure of the fabricating Taxidermist : the same may be also said of 

 the elevation of the nose, and indeed of the appearance of every other 

 feature which would admit of the insertion of the composition. 



Of the cervical vertebrae, or joints of the neck, nothing is obvious ; 

 these are concealed beneath the wrinkles of the skin and composition, but 

 of the spine nearly the whole dorsal region is distinguishable, and which, 

 with the exception of a little crippling and bending forwards, appears to be 

 remaining in their true position ; the four upper dorsal vertebra3 are per- 

 ceptible under their natural covering, the skin of an Orang-Outang ; the 

 six lower ones most unnaturally protude to view beneath the skin of the 

 fish, which has been stretched over it, appearing like so many distinct emi- 

 nences, and which besides disturbing the natural arrangement of the fish- 

 scales by lifting them out of their true position, demonstrate very clearly 

 by their appearance that the skin of the fish had never been adherent 

 naturally to those dorsal vertebrae of the mammiferous animal. Although 

 no more than ten joints of the dorsal region appear, we cannot doubt, from 

 VOL. II. R 



