Linnæus 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 “Amœnitates Academicæ” (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. Pygmæus Edwardi. The first is a bad copy of Bontius’ fictitious “Ourang-outang,” in whose existence, however, Linnæus appears to have fully believed; for in the standard edition of the “Systema Naturæ,” 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 formæ raræ Barbilius vocatus et originem a china ducebat.” Hoppius is of opinion that this may be one of that cat-tailed people, of whom Nicolaus Köping affirms that they eat a boat’s crew, “gubernator navis” and all! In the “Systema Naturæ” Linnæus 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 Naturæ,” and is regarded by Linnæus as possibly a distinct species from Satyrus sylvestris. The last, named Pygmæus 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 Abbé Prevost had translated a good deal of Purchas’ Pilgrims into French, in his “Histoire générale 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 à Lowando Province de Congo.
“Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal à Congo que nous avons adopté. En est l’article que nous avons retranché.”
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 Abbé 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 societé 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,[8] 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.
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.”[9] And again, “The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia, that of Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus, or tail-less 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).
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,[10] 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 21⁄2 feet in length. The larger sort, often regarded as chimæra, 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.
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 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.
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