Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Strange to say, however, several persons declare that they have measured Orangs of a
much larger size. Temminck, in his Monograph of the Orang, says, that he has just received
news of the capture of a specimen 5 feet 3 inches high. Unfortunately, it never seems to
have reached Holland, for nothing has since been heard of any such animal. Mr. St. John,
in his 'Life in the Forests of the Far East,' vol. ii. p. 237, tells us of an Orang shot by a
friend of his, which was 5 feet 2 inches from the heel to the top of the head, the arm 17
inches in girth, and the wrist 12 inches! The head alone was brought to Saráwak, and Mr. St.
John tells us that he assisted to measure this, and that it was 15 inches broad by 14 long. Un-
fortunately, even this skull appears not to have been preserved, for no specimen correspond-
ing to these dimensions has yet reached England.
In a letter from Sir James Brooke, dated October 1857, in which he acknowledges the re-
ceipt of my Papers on the Orang, published in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural His-
tory,' he sends me the measurements of a specimen killed by his nephew, which I will give
exactly as I received it: 'September 3d, 1867, killed female Orang-utan. Height, from head
to heel, 4 feet 6 inches. Stretch from fingers to fingers across body, 6 feet 1 inch. Breadth of
face, including callosities, 11 inches.' Now, in these dimensions, there is palpably one error;
for in every Orang yet measured by any naturalist, an expanse of arms of 6 feet 1 inch cor-
responds to a height of about 3 feet 6 inches, while the largest specimens of 4 feet to 4 feet 2
inches high, always have the extended arms as much as 7 feet 3 inches to 7 feet 8 inches. It
is, in fact, one of the characters of the genus to have the arms so long that an animal stand-
ing nearly erect can rest its fingers on the ground. A height of 4 feet 6 inches would there-
fore require a stretch of arms of at least 8 feet! If it were only 6 feet to that height, as given
in the dimensions quoted, the animal would not be an Orang at all, but a new genus of apes,
differing materially in habits and mode of progression. But Mr. Johnson, who shot this an-
imal, and who knows Orangs well, evidently considered it to be one; and we have therefore
to judge whether it is more probable that he made a mistake of two feet in the stretch of the
arms, or of one foot in the height. The latter error is certainly the easiest to make, and it will
bring his animal into agreement, as to proportions and size, with all those which exist in
Europe. How easy it is to be deceived in the height of these animals is well shown in the
case of the Sumatran Orang, the skin of which was described by Dr. Clarke Abel. The cap-
tain and crew who killed this animal declared, that when alive he exceeded the tallest man,
and looked so gigantic that they thought he was 7 feet high; but that, when he was killed and
lay upon the ground, they found he was only about 6 feet. Now it will hardly be credited
that the skin of this identical animal exists in the Calcutta Museum, and Mr. Blyth, the late
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