MAMMALOGY. 



In the "Narrative" of this voyage to the court of Pekin, 

 Mr. Abel enters with much minuteness into the peculiarities of this 

 curious animal 5 his description is also accompanied with a drawing 

 of it taken shortly after its arrival ; it is from the pencil of the late 

 Mr.Sydenham Edwards; that figure represents the Orang-Outang in 

 a squat position, with the legs folded under it, a position from which 

 the true proportions of the lower limbs cannot be in any manner 

 understood. The standing figure in the works of Allamand of the 

 specimen seen alive at the Hague some years since is better and more 

 characteristic of its true formation when standing, or in the act of as- 

 cending, as we have often witnessed by comparing it with the living 

 animal ; but as we have had the additional advantage, besides our 

 study of its manners in a living state, of ascertaining the respective 

 proportions of its limbs from the skeleton itself, we may trust that 

 our figures will not fail to convey a very correct idea of the animal. 

 In our present plate one of these creatures is seen half-reclining upon 

 the trunk of a tree with a staff in his hand, a posture not unusual 

 with this animal ; the other appears standing nearly erect. This latter 

 figure is calculated to shew the manner in which the animal can best 

 appear in an erect position : that is not by standing firmly like a human 

 being upon the level earth, but by grasping the branch of a tree ob- 

 liquely with one or both of its feet, which are formed for climbing, 

 and then hfting itself up, as it can with facility, in a standing or erect 

 position: 



When the animal arrived in England, its various proportions 

 were taken with much accuracy by Mr. Abel, who has subjoined a 

 table of those proportions. From the great difficulty of being accu- 

 rate without employing coercion in taking these measurements of 



