Page:Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature.djvu/23

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THE MAN-LIKE APES.
17

is devoted to what he calls Satyrus indicus "called by the Indians Orang-autang, or Man-of-the-Woods, and by the Africans Qnoias Morrou." He gives a very good figure, evidently from the life, of the specimen of this animal, "nostra memoria ex Angolâ delatum," presented to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. Tulpius says it was as big as a child of three years old, and as stout as one of six years: and that its back was covered with black hair. It is plainly a young Chimpanzee.

In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asiatic, man-like Apes became known, but at first in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius (1658) gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous account and figure of an animal which he calls "Orang-outang"; and though he says "vidi Ego cujus effigiem hic exhibeo," the said effigies (see fig. 6 for Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and with proportions and feet wholly human. The judicious English anatomist, Tyson, was justified in saying of this description by Bontius, "I confess I do mistrust the whole representation."

It is to the last mentioned writer, and his coadjutor Cowper, that we owe the first account of a man-like ape which has any pretensions to a scientific accuracy and completeness. The treatise entitled, Orang-outang, sive Homo Sylvestris; or the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man," published by the Royal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and has, in some respects, served as a model to subsequent inquirers. This "Pygmie," Tyson tells us, "was brought from Angola, in Africa; but was first taken a great deal higher up the country;" its hair "was of a coal-black colour, and strait," and " when it went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas awkwardly; not