With reference to the ‘Transmutation of Species.’

For about two centuries, naturalists have been cognizant of a small ape, tailless, without cheek-pouches, and without the ischial callosities, clothed with black hair, with a facial angle of about 60°, and of a physiognomy milder and more human-like than in the ordinary race of monkeys, less capricious, less impulsive in its habits, more staid and docile. This species, brought from the West Coast of Africa, is that which our anatomist, Tyson, dissected: he described the main features of its organisation in his work published in 1699. He called it the Homo Sylvestris, or pigmy. It is noted by Linnaeus, in some editions of his Systema Naturœ, as the Homo Troglodytes. Blumenbach, giving a truer value to the condition of the innermost digit of the hind foot, which was like a thumb, called it the Simia Troglodytes; it afterwards became more commonly known as the ‘Chimpanzee.’

At a later period, naturalists became acquainted with a similar kind of ape, of quiet docile disposition, with the same sad, humanlike expression of features. It was brought from Borneo or Sumatra; where it is known by the name of Orang, which, in the language of the natives of Borneo, signifies ‘man,’ with the distinctive addition of Outan, meaning ‘Wood-man,’ or ‘Wild Man of the Woods.’