between its hands or fore paws; afterwards, supporting itself on its hind legs, it advances the upper part of its body, rests again on its hands as at first, and thus moves forward. It is only when we take it by one hand that it walks on its feet, and in this case it uses its other hand to support it. I have scarcely ever seen it stand firmly on the sole of the foot; most frequently it only rested on the outer edge, apparently desirous of preserving its toes from all friction on the ground; nevertheless it some. times rested on the whole of the foot, but in this case it kept the two last phalanges bent inwards, except the great toe, which was stretched out. When resting, it sate on its buttocks with its legs folded under it in the manner of the inhabitants of the east. It lay indiscriminately on its back or on its side, drawing up its legs and crossing its hands over its breast; and it was fond of being covered, for it drew over it all the clothes it could reach.

This animal used its hands in all the essential motions in which men employ theirs; and it is evident that it only requires experience to enable it to use them on almost every occasion. It generally carried its food to its mouth with its fingers; but sometimes also it seized it with its long lips; and it was by suction that it drank, like all other animals which have lips capable of being lengthened. It made use of its sense of smelling in order to decide upon the nature of the aliments which were presented to it, and which it was not acquainted with, and it seemed to consult this sense with great

assiduity. It ate almost indiscriminately, fruits, pulse, eggs, milk, and animal food: bread, coffee, and oranges were its most favourite aliments; and it once emptied an ink-bottle which came in its way without being incommoded. It had no particular times for going to meals and ate at all seasons like an infant. Its sight and hearing were good. Music made no impression upon it. The mammiferæ are not formed by nature to be sensible to its charms, none of their wants seem to require it, and even with mankind it is an artificial want; on savages it has no other effect than a noise would have.

When defending itself, our ourang outang bit and struck with its hands; but it was only against children that it showed any roguery, and it was always caused by impatience rather than by anger. In general it was gentle and affectionate, and seemed to delight in society. It was fond of being caressed, gave real kisses, and seemed to experience a great deal of pleasure in sucking the fingers of those who approached it; but it did not suck its own fingers. Its cry was guttural and sharp, but it was only heard when it eagerly wanted any thing. All its signs were then very expressive: it darted its head forward in order to show its disapprobation, pouted when it was not obeyed, and when angry it cried very loudly, rolling itself on the ground. On these occasions its neck was prodigiously swelled.

By the above description it will be seen that the ourang outang in question had attained a size suffi

ciently great for its age, which was not more than 15 or 16 months: its teeth, limbs, and powers were almost perfect; whence it may be inferred that it had nearly ac quired its full growth, and that its life does not extend beyond 25 years.

This ourang outang arrived at Paris in the beginning of March 1808. M. Decaen, an officer of the French navy, and brother to the governor of the Isles of France and Bourbon, brought it from the former place, and presented it to the Empress Josephine, whose taste for natural history is conspicuous. When it arrived in the Isle of France from Borneo where it was born, it was only three months old; it remained three months in the Isle of France, was three months on its voyage to Spain where it was landed, and having been two months in its journey to Paris, it must have been 10or 11 months old when it arrived in the winter of 1808. The fatigues of a long sea voyage, but above all, the cold which the animal experienced in crossing the Pyrenees amid the snows, reduced it to the last extremity; and when it arrived at Paris several of its toes were frozen, and it laboured under a hectic fever brought on by obstructions in the spleen accompanied by a cough: it refused all sustenance, and was almost motionless. In this state it came into the possession of M. Godard, a friend of M. Decaen, who succeeded in partially restoring it to health.

I visited it almost every day while it lived; and Messrs. God ard and Decaen enabled me to add to the observations I made.

The means which succeeded in restoring this animal to some de gree of health, were good victuals, a proper temperature, and, above all, cleanliness. At first the disease was combated with tonics: bark being inadmissible in the usual way was administered in baths and frictions; but these remedies fatigued the animal more than they relieved it and they were given up. The constipation of the bowels was nevertheless obstinate, and it was necesssary to have frequent recourse to bathing, and this treatment was pursued till the animal's death. The desire for sucking which it evinced, suggested the idea of suckling it again, but it refused the breast of a woman who volunteered on this singular service. It also refused to suckle the teats of a goat. At first it seemed fond of milk, but it soon got tired of it, and of every other aliment, which was given it in succession, with the exception of oranges, which it seemed fond of to the last. In about five months the animal died; and on opening its body, most of the viscera were found to be disorganized and full of obstructions.

Such was the animal who formed the subject of my observations; and, far different from those which have hitherto been described, it had never been subjected to any particular education, and was only influenced by the circumstances in which it happened to be placed : it owed nothing to habit, nothing mechanical entered into its actions, all of them were the simple effects of volition, or at least of nature. Now that I have de

scribed the organs of this animal and their uses, I ought to make known the phænomena which its intelligence presented: but before entering upon these details I ought to say a word on the influence which the intellect is liable to from the modifications of our

senses.

It appears to me, that some authors have made intelligence depend much more than was just on the greater or less perfection of the hands or fingers. Now although the hand of an ape and of an ourang outang differs very little from ours, and these animals could undoubtedly make the same use of them as we do, if they were actuated by the same ideas, yet an ourang outang would no more be, a man with more perfect hands or fingers, than a man would be an ape because he was born without arms. The influence of the senses, on the mind has been particularly exaggerated: some authors have thought that upon the degree of perfection of these organs the degree of the perfection of the understanding in a great measure depended. Nevertheless it must be admitted that several animals have senses completely similar to ours; and the description which we have given of the ourang outang shows that this animal, which certainly is not a man, has received senses equally numerous, and at least equally delicate with ours. Besides, if we consider the real influence exercised on the operations of the understanding by more or less delicate organs, we see that it is limited to the multiplying of ideas in a greater or less ratio, without making any change in the

manner of setting these elements at work. The most humble artizan, who has exercised his sight least, and who cannot distinguish the most striking shades of colour, will not be less of the same species with the painter who has studied all the accidents of light, and who can recognize them in the slightest undulations of a drapery. Lastly, the understanding may have ideas, without the aid of the senses : two thirds of the brute creation are moved by ideas which they do not owe to their sensations, but which flow immediately from their brain. Instinct constitutes this order of phænomena; it is composed of ideas truly innate, in which the senses have never had the smallest share. Every thing unites, therefore, in my opinion, to convince us that it is neither in the conformation of the limbs, nor, in the greater or less perfection of the senses, that we must seek the principal cause of the intellectual qualities which distinguish us from the lower animals, and even the cause of those which perhaps distinguish the animals of certain classes. The operations, the phæ nomena of our intelligence which characterize us, must proceed from higher and more potent causes: faculties, even of the understanding, or of the organ in which these faculties reside, i. e. the brain. Consequently, we ap-. ply ourselves much more to appre ciate the use which our ourang outang made of its sensations, the results which he knew how to draw from its ideas, than to analyse these sensations themselves, or to seek for the elements and the nature of these ideas,

All the faculties of animals concur to the same end,-the preservation of the species and of individuals. The individual is preserved by defending himself against dangers, and by procuring what is necessary for its existence. The preservation of the species is effected by generation. It is, therefore, to preserve his existence, and to propagate, that an animal employs all his faculties and refers all his actions; and it is with respect to defending itself against danger, and procuring necessaries for its existence, that the following observations more particularly apply. Our ourang outang was not old enough to have experienced the calls of nature in respect to generation, and to exhibit their effects. This plan simplifies the study of the intellectual faculties of brutes. Hitherto the science which has had these faculties for its object, has consisted of isolated facts, the number of which might still increase indefinitely without increasing our knowledge, if we did not endeavour to subject them to fixed and proper rules, to regard them in their true point of view, and to appreciate their real value. We know that the faculties of the understanding are not developed until the organs are formed: we are at liberty to suppose, therefore, that if our ourang outang had arrived at an adult age, she would have exhibited phænomena still more curious than those which we have to detail: but if we reflect that this animal was scarcely 16 months old when it died, we shall find plenty of subjects of astonishment in the observations which it afforded, and

of which we are about to give an account.

Of the intellectual Phænomena which have for their object to defend the Animal against Dan

ger.

Nature has given the ourang outang but few means of defence. Next to man, it is an animal perhaps which finds in its own resources the feeblest defence against dangers: but in recompense it has a great facility in ascending trees, and thus escaping the enemies which it cannot combat. These sole considerations would be sufficient for encouraging the presumption that nature has endowed the ourang outang with great circumspection. In fact, the prudence of this animal is conspicuous in all its actions, and chiefly in those which have for their object to save it from some dangers. Nevertheless its tranquil life, while under my inspection, and the impossibility of subjecting it to severe experiments in the weak state in which it was, prevented me from making many observations: but assisted by those which had been made by M. Decaen during the voyage from the Isle of France to Europe, my readers will obtain some idea of its intellectual faculties.

During the first week after its embarkation this ourang outang evinced great fears for its safety, and seemed greatly to exaggerate the dangers of the rolling of the vessel. It never ventured to walk, without firmly grasping in its hands the ropes or other parts of the vessel: it constantly refused to

ascend the masts, however solicitous the crew were to induce it, and it was only prevailed on to do so from a sentiment, or a want, which nature seems to have carried to a high degree of perfection in animals of this kind: this sentiment was that of affection, which our animal constantly evinced, and I have no doubt that it would lead the ourang outangs to live in society, and to defend themselves mutually, when certain dangers menaced them, like other animals which nature forms for herding together. However this may be, our ourang outang never had the courage to ascend the masts until M. Decaen did so himself: it followed him up for the first time; and having thus acquired some confidence in its own powers, it used frequently to repeat the experiment.

The means employed by the ourang outangs in defending themselves are in general those which are common to all timid animals, artifice and prudence: but the former have a strength of judgment far superior to the latter, and which they employ occasion ally to remove enemies from them who are stronger. This was proved to us in a very remarkable manner by the animal in question. Living in a state of liberty, he was accustomed in fine weather to visit a garden, where he could take exercise in the open air by ascending and sitting among the trees. One day that it was perched on a tree, a person approached it as if with an intention to catch it, but the animal instantly laid hold of the adjoining branches and shook them with all its force, as if it was his intention to frighten the person who attempted to ascend, by sug

gesting the risk of his falling. This experiment was repeatedly made with the same results.

In whatever way we regard the above action, it must be impossible for us to overlook the result of a combination of acute intelligence, or to deny to the animal the faculty of generalizing. Our ourang outang, by an experiment which the wantonness of the sailors had frequently made on it, perceived that the violent agitation of bodies, which support men or animals, makes them lose their equilibrium, and fall; and it reflected that, when placed in analogous circumstances, others would experience what it had experienced itself, and that the fear of falling would hinder them from ascending. It extended, therefore, to beings who were strangers to it, an idea which was personal to itself: and from a particular circumstance it formed a general rule.

It was frequently fatigued with the numerous visits which it received, and would hide itself under its coverlid; but it never did this except when strangers were present.

My observations on the intellectual means resorted to by ourang outangs for their defence, are confined to these facts alone; but they are sufficient, in my opinion, to prove that these animals are able to make up by the resources of intellect for their feeble corporeal organization.

On the intellectual phænomena which have for their object to procure for the Animal such Things as are necessary for its Subsistence.

The natural wants of the ourang