Evidence as to Mans Place In Nature | Page 9

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, published
(1779) an essay on the Orang-Utan of similar value to that of Tyson on
the Chimpanzee. He dissected several females and a male, all of which,
from the state of their skeleton and their dentition, he justly supposes to
have been young. However, judging by the analogy of man, he
concludes that they could not have exceeded four feet in height in the
adult condition. Furthermore, he is very clear as to the specific
distinctness of the true East Indian Orang.
"The Orang," says he, "differs not only from the Pigmy of Tyson and
from the Orang of Tulpius by its peculiar colour and its long toes, but
also by its whole external form. Its arms, its hands, and its feet are
longer, while the thumbs, on the contrary, are much shorter, and the
great toes much smaller in proportion."* And again, "The true Orang,
that is to say, that of Asia, that of Borneo, is consequently not the
Pithecus, or tailless Ape, which the Greeks, and especially Galen, have
described. It is neither the Pongo nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of
Tulpius, nor the Pigmy of Tyson,--'it is an animal of a peculiar species',
as I shall prove in the clearest manner by the organs of voice and the
skeleton in the following chapters" (l. c. p. 64).
[footnote] *Camper, 'Oeuvres', i. p. 56.
A few years later, M. Radermacher, who held a high office in the
Government of the Dutch dominions in India, and was an active
member of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, published, in the
second part of the Transactions of that Society,* a Description of the
Island of Borneo, which was written between the years 1779 and 1781,

and, among much other interesting matter, contains some notes upon
the Orang. The small sort of Orang-Utan, viz. that of Vosmaer and of
Edwards, he says, is found only in Borneo, and chiefly about
Banjermassing, Mampauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen some
fifty during his residence in the Indies; but none exceeded 2 1/2 feet in
length. The larger sort, often regarded as a chimaera, continues
Radermacher, would perhaps long have remained so, had it not been for
the exertions of the Resident at Rembang, M. Palm, who, on returning
from Landak towards Pontiana, shot one, and forwarded it to Batavia in
spirit, for transmission to Europe.
[footnote] *Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede
Deel. Derde Druk. 1826.
Palm's letter describing the capture runs thus:--"Herewith I send your
Excellency, contrary to all expectation (since long ago I offered more
than a hundred ducats to the natives for an Orang-Utan of four or five
feet high) an Orang which I heard of this morning about eight o'clock.
For a long time we did our best to take the frightful beast alive in the
dense forest about half way to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so
anxious were we not to let him escape; but it was necessary to take care
that he did not revenge himself, as he kept continually breaking off
heavy pieces of wood and green branches, and dashing them at us. This
game lasted till four o'clock in the afternoon, when we determined to
shoot him; in which I succeeded very well, and indeed better than I
ever shot from a boat before; for the bullet went just into the side of his
chest, so that he was not much damaged. We got him into the prow still
living, and bound him fast, and next morning he died of his wounds.
All Pontiana came on board to see him when we arrived." Palm gives
his height from the head to the heel as 49 inches.
FIG. 7.--The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper, after
Camper's original sketches, as reproduced by Lucae.
A very intelligent German officer, Baron Von Wurmb, who at this time
held a post in the Dutch East India service, and was Secretary of the
Batavian Society, studied this animal, and