MAMMALOGY. 



The provocation must be however great before this poor animal 

 would resent it ; his character, as it has been well observed, was 

 rather that of melancholy mildness, and which was impressed so 

 strongly upon his countenance that it appeared entirely natural to 

 him. If he was susceptible of some transient bursts of passion, it 

 was the momentary result of being disappointed of some favourite 

 fruit with which he had been tantalized ; he would on such occasions 

 throw himself down with violence upon the ground and cry, but w^as 

 never known to offer the slightest bodily resentment against those 

 who mortified and disappointed him. He had nothing of the antics 

 of an ape or monkey, his only pleasure appeared to be in assimilating 

 his manners to the social habits of man. He could evidently discrimi- 

 nate the supreme importance of the human race, which he testified in 

 every manner by his docility and affection, while the conscious 

 superiority he seemed to entertain of himself above all others of the 

 brute creation could not be pourtrayed more strongly than in his 

 ever shunning their society : even that of the monkey tribe, when 

 forced into his company to alleviate the monotony of his captivity, 

 be would avoid with abhorrence ; the dog was the only animal with 

 which he was ever known to be in the least degree familiar or sociable. 

 It is then an attribute of human reason and not of instinct, that the 

 benevolence of the highest race of animated beings should extend to 

 all beneath them ; man was more indulgent to the inferior state of 

 the Orang-Outang than he was to others, and thus marked the noble 

 impulse of human reason beyond instinctive intelligence. 



The Orang-Outang lived in the menagery for the space of 

 nearly two years. During the winter season he was necessarily kept 

 in a room warmed to a proper degree of temperature by means of 



