PLATE LVII. 



premised that when Linngeus entered into such inquiry for his 

 academical paper, De Anthropomorphis, a paper read in 1760, and 



dient has been serviceable ia distending the dried skin of the breast, or in 

 partially filling-np the cavities of its vi^nnkles. The Orang-Outang it will 

 be recollected is a corpulent animal, and its skin in consequence lax and 

 ver}^ capable of such distension. 



In speaking of the mammiferous parts of this pretended prodigy of the 

 ocean we have only further to observe that the skin of the animal where it 

 does appear either naturally adherent to or drawn over the various portions 

 of the fabrication is that of the Orang-Outang ; the general colour tawny 

 brown, inclining to rufous, the natural hue of the hair of this animal, but 

 not of the skin, which is blueish, and which appears therefore to be a tint 

 communicated to the dried skin by means of stains and composition. The 

 face, as in the Orang-Outang, is bare of hair, or only slightly pilose, 

 the colour blueish, and this appearance, as well as some remaining traces 

 of the colour, are obvious in this dried portion of the animal. The black hair 

 on the head of this preserved subject is about two inches long, straight or 

 without any appearance of being frizzled, and has been partly cut off on 

 one side of the head; the presence of such hair has been advanced as an 

 evidence of its near resemblance to the human frame ; this is, however, an 

 error, for it accords, in this particular with the black hair on the head of the 

 Orang-Outang instead ; and lastly, the reversed hair on the fore-arms al- 

 though their remains are sparing, are decidedly characteristic of the 

 Orang-Outang, and in addition to its other characters, at once establish 

 its identity with that animal. 



PISCIVOROUS PORTION OF THE PRESUMED " MERMAID." 



The piscivorous part of this two-fold object is worthy of the curiosity 

 of the speculative enquirer, for it might be reasonably concluded that since 

 so large a portion of the mammiferous animal appeared as the head, the 

 anterior limbs, and nearly the whole thoracic region, as well in front as 

 laterally and behind, that the posterior extremity of this pretended 

 prodigy of the waves would have been deemed sufficiently ample had 

 she terminated like the fabled sirens of the ancients in a fish-like tail, or in 

 two distinct tails like Gratian and the other rebellious giants of the Titanes. 

 But the object before us is much less conformable with classic lore, and pre- 

 sents a new anomaly in the records both of fable and of science ; it is not 

 the tail merely but the whole body of the fish after undergoing decapitation 

 that we now behold appendant to the " Mermaid's" bust ; only that instead 



