Evidence as to Mans Place In Nature | Page 8

by a plate, of which the accompanying woodcut, Fig, 6, is a reduced copy, The figures are entitled (from left to right) 1. 'Troglodyta Bontii'; 2. 'Lucifer Aldrovandi'; 3. 'Satyrus Tulpii'; 4. 'Pygmaeus Edwardi'. The first is a bad copy of Bontius' fictitious 'Ourang-outang,' in whose existence, however, Linnaeus appears to have fully believed; for in the standard edition of the 'Systema Naturae', it is enumerated as a second species of Homo; "H. nocturnus." 'Lucifer Aldrovandi' is a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus, 'De Quadrupedibus digitatis viviparis', Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645), entitled "Cercopithecus formae rarae 'Barbilius' vocatus et originem a china ducebat." Hoppius is of opinion that this may be one of that cat-tailed people, of whom Nicolaus Koping affirms that they eat a boat's crew, "gubernator navis" and all! In the 'Systema Naturae' Linnaeus calls it in a note, 'Homo caudatus', and seems inclined to regard it as a third species of man. According to Temminck, 'Satyrus Tulpii' is a copy of the figure of a Chimpanzee published by Scotin in 1738, which I have not seen. It is the 'Satyrus indicus' of the 'Systema Naturae', and is regarded by Linnaeus as possibly a distinct species from 'Satyrus sylvestris'. The last, named 'Pygmaeus Edwardi', is copied from the figure of a young "Man of the Woods," or true Orang-Utan, given in Edwards' 'Gleanings of Natural History' (1758).
Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. Not only had he the rare opportunity of examining a young Chimpanzee in the living state, but he became possessed of an adult Asiatic man-like Ape--the first and the last adult specimen of any of these animals brought to Europe for many years. With the valuable assistance of Daubenton, Buffon gave an excellent description of this creature, which, from its singular proportions, he termed the long-armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern 'Hylobates lar'.
Thus when, in 1766, Buffon wrote the fourteenth volume of his great work, he was personally familiar with the young of one kind of African man-like Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic species--while the Orang-Utan and the Mandrill of Smith were known to him by report. Furthermore, the Abbe Prevost had translated a good deal of Purchas' Pilgrims into French, in his 'Histoire generale des Voyages' (1748), and there Buffon found a version of Andrew Battell's account of the Pongo and the Engeco. All these data Buffon attempts to weld together into harmony in his chapter entitled "Les Orang-outangs ou le Pongo et le Jocko." To this title the following note is appended:--
"Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales: Pongo nom de cet animal a Lowando Province de Congo.
"Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal a Congo que nous avons adopte. 'En' est l'article que nous avons retranche."
Thus it was that Andrew Battell's "Engeco" became metamorphosed into "Jocko," and, in the latter shape, was spread all over the world, in consequence of the extensive popularity of Buffon's works. The Abbe Prevost and Buffon between them, however, did a good deal more disfigurement to Battell's sober account than 'cutting off an article.' Thus Battell's statement that the Pongos "cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast," is rendered by Buffon "qu'il ne peut parler 'quoiqu'il ait plus d'entendement que les autres animaux'"; and again, Purchas' affirmation, "He told me in conference with him, that one of these Pongos tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them," stands in the French version, "un pongo lui enleva un petit negre qui passa un 'an' entier dans la societe de ces animaux."
After quoting the account of the great Pongo, Buffon justly remarks, that all the 'Jockos' and 'Orangs' hitherto brought to Europe were young; and he suggests that, in their adult condition, they might be as big as the Pongo or 'great Orang'; so that, provisionally, he regarded the Jockos, Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species. And perhaps this was as much as the state of knowledge at the time warranted. But how it came about that Buffon failed to perceive the similarity of Smith's 'Mandrill' to his own 'Jocko,' and confounded the former with so totally different a creature as the blue-faced Baboon, is not so easily intelligible.
Twenty years later Buffon changed his opinion,* and expressed his belief that the Orangs constituted a genus with two species,--a large one, the Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko: that the small one (Jocko) is the East Indian Orang; and that the young animals from Africa, observed by himself and Tulpius, are simply young Pongos.
[footnote] *'Histoire Naturelle', Suppl. tome 7eme, 1789.
In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vosmaer, gave, in 1778, a very good account and figure of a young Orang, brought alive to Holland, and his countryman, the famous anatomist, Peter Camper,