Evidence as to Mans Place In Nature | Page 8

of it, told the slave he was very fond of his
country-woman, and asked him if he should not like her for a wife? To
which the slave very readily replied, 'No, this no my wife; this a white
woman--this fit wife for you.' This unlucky wit of the negro's, I fancy,
hastened its death, for next morning it was found dead under the
windlass."
William Smith's 'Mandrill,' or 'Boggoe,' as his description and figure
testify, was, without doubt, a Chimpanzee.
FIG. 6.--The Anthropomorpha of Linnaeus.
Linnaeus knew nothing, of his own observation, of the man-like Apes
of either Africa or Asia, but a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the

'Amoenitates Academicae' (VI. 'Anthropomorpha') may be regarded as
embodying his views respecting these animals.
The dissertation is illustrated 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