Page:Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature.djvu/35

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THE MAN-LIKE APES.
29

this skeleton again on the 19th December, 1785, after it had been excellently put to rights by the ingenious Onymus."

It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, which is doubtless that which has always gone by the name of Wurmb's Pongo, is not that of the animal described by him, though unquestionably similar in all essential points.

Camper proceeds to note some of the most important features of this skeleton; promises to describe it in detail by-and-bye; and is evidently in doubt as to the relation of this great 'Pongo' to his "petit Orang."

The promised further investigations were never carried out; and so it happened that the Pongo of Yon Wurmb took its place by the side of the Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and colossal species of man-like Ape. And indeed nothing could look much less like the Chimpanzees or the Orangs, then known, than the Pongo; for all the specimens of Chimpanzee and Orang which had been observed were small of stature, singularly human in aspect, gentle and docile; while Wurmb's Pongo was a monster almost twice their size, of vast strength and fierceness, and very brutal in expression; its great projecting muzzle, armed with strong teeth, being further disfigured by the outgrowth of the cheeks into fleshy lobes.

Eventually, in accordance with the usual marauding habits of the Revolutionary armies, the 'Pongo' skeleton was carried away from Holland into France, and notices of it, expressly intended to demonstrate its entire distinctness from the Orang and its affinity with the baboons, were given, in 1798, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier.

Even in Cuvier's "Tableau Elementaire," and in the first edition of his great work, the "Regne Animal," the 'Pongo' is classed as a species of Baboon. However, so