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In a letter from Sir James Brooke, dated October 1857 in which he acknowledges the receipt of my Papers on the Orang, published in the "Annals and Magazine of Natural History," he sends me the measurements of a specimen killed by his nephew, which I will give exactly as I received it: "September 3rd, 1867, killed female Orangutan. Height, from head to heel, 4 feet 6 inches.
Exactly a week after I had caught this interesting little animal, I succeeded in shooting a full-grown male Orangutan. "Where is it?" I asked, taking hold of my gun as I spoke, which happened luckily to have one barrel loaded with ball. "Close by, sir on the path to the mines he can't get away."
As the Orangutan is known to inhabit Sumatra, and was in fact first discovered there, I made many inquiries about it; but none of the natives had ever heard of such an animal, nor could I find any of the Dutch officials who knew anything about it.
With the exception of the Orangutan, the Siamang, the Tarsius spectrum, and the Galeopithecus, all the Malayan genera of Quadrumana are represented in India by closely allied species, although, owing to the limited range of most of these animals, so few are absolutely identical.
In all these objects I succeeded beyond my expectations, and will now give some account of my experience in hunting the Orangutan, or "Mias," as it is called by the natives; and as this name is short, and easily pronounced, I shall generally use it in preference to Simia satyrus, or Orangutan. Just a week after my arrival at the mines, I first saw a Mias.
When we consider, further, that almost all other animals have in earlier ages been represented by allied yet distinct forms that, in the latter part of the tertiary period, Europe was inhabited by bears, deer, wolves, and cats; Australia by kangaroos and other marsupials; South America by gigantic sloths and ant-eaters; all different from any now existing, though intimately allied to them we have every reason to believe that the Orangutan, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla have also had their forerunners.
When I first heard that doctrine I did not like it. I felt sorry for our English friends, who would have to trace their pedigree back to the Duke of Orangutan, or the Earl of Chimpanzee. But I have read so much about rudimentary bones and rudimentary muscles that I began to doubt about it. Says I: "What do you mean by rudimentary muscles?"
He leaped from left to right, and back again, like an orangutan stirred to frenzied anger. Mr. McGowan tried to stop him by calling time, but with a foul oath he shot a stiff arm into the minister's abdomen. Decidedly jarred, Mr. McGowan swayed back under the impact of the foul, but recovered his footing in time to meet the other with a blow full in the face. The stranger rushed in again, but Mr.
I felt sorry for people who had nothing but ancestors to be proud of. It touched my heart to think that they would have to go back to the Duke Orangutan or the Duchess Chimpanzee. I was sorry, and I hated to believe it. I don't know that it is the truth now. I am not satisfied upon that question; I stand about eight to seven. I thought it over. I read about it.
Add to these flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favor of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the orangutan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?
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