the most part parallel to each other. Above this framework a number of loose leaves lay. There is no doubt, therefore, that these nests are not by any means elaborate structures, and that they only serve as sleeping-places, and not as nurseries for the upbringing of the young, as has been asserted.
The Orang seems to be usually of a fairly mild disposition; it will rarely attack a man unprovoked. But Dr. Wallace, who has accumulated a large number of observations upon these animals, describes a female Orang who "on a durian tree kept up for at least ten minutes a continuous shower of branches, and of the heavy-spined fruits as large as 32-pounders, which most effectually kept us clear of the tree she was on. She could be seen breaking them off and throwing them down with every appearance of rage, uttering at intervals a loud pumping grunt, and evidently meaning mischief." The name given by the Dyaks to the Orang is Mias Pappan.[1]
Fossil Anthropoid Apes.—Undoubtedly the most interesting of fossil Anthropoids is the now famous Pithecanthropus erectus. Our knowledge of it is due in the first place to Dubois.[2] But there is hardly an anatomist or an anthropologist who has not had his say upon this regrettably very incomplete remnant. The creature is only known by a calvarium, two separate teeth, and a femur. And the femur, moreover, is diseased. M. Dubois discovered these remains in the island of Java in andesite tufa of Pliocene or at least early Pleistocene age. The remains were found in company with Stegodon, which is now extinct, and Hippopotamus, which is no longer found in that part of the world. The name Pithecanthropus was given to it by the discoverer in order to furnish with a definite habitation and a name the theoretical Pithecanthropus of Haeckel. Even the most particular of students of mammalian nomenclature will hardly object to the utilisation of a name for a second time which is with some clearness a nomen nudum! The animal when erect must have stood 5 feet 6 inches high. The contents of the cranium must have been 1000 cm., that is to say 400 cm. more than the cranial capacity of any Anthropoid
- ↑ For the external appearance of the Orang see Hermes, Zeitschr. f. Ethn. 1876, a paper which has coloured plates.
- ↑ Pithecanthropus erectus. Eine menschenähnliche Uebergangsform aus Java, Batavia, 1894. See also Ernst Haeckel, The Last Link (with notes by H. Gadow), London, 1898; Manouvrier, Amer. Journ. Sci. 1897, p. 213 (extracts); and Klaatsch, Zoolog. Centralbl. vi. 1899, p. 217.
