A Book of Natural History

Huxley, Darwin, Wallace, Burroughs and Maeterlinck, writing for young readers — thirty-odd essays by the great naturalists on everything from the man-like apes to what worms do.

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The Man-Like Apes: Wallace

Mr. Wallace observed two male adult Orangs (Mias Kassu of the Dyaks), however, so very different from any of these that he concludes them to be specially distinct; they were respectively 3 feet 8½ inches and 3 feet 9 inches high, and possessed no sign of the cheek The Man-like Apes excrescences, but otherwise resembled the larger kinds. The skull has no crest, but two bony ridges, 14 to 2 inches apart, as in the Simia morio of Professor Owen. The teeth, however, are immense, equalling or surpassing those of the other species. The females of both these kinds, according to Mr. Wallace, are devoid of excrescences, and resemble the smaller males, but are shorter by 1½ to 3 inches, and their canine teeth are comparatively small, subtruncated and dilated at the base, as in the so-called Simia morio, which is, in all probability, the skull of a female of the same species as the smaller males. Both males and females of this smaller species are distinguishable, according to Mr. Wallace, by the comparatively large size of the middle incisors of the upper jaw.

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