William Smith’s “Mandrill,” or “Boggoe,” as his description and figure testify, was, without doubt, a Chimpanzee.
Fig. 6.—The Anthropomorpha of Linnæus.
Linnæus knew nothing, of his own observation, of the man-like Apes of either Africa or Asia, but a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the “Amœnitates Academicæ” (VI. “Anthropomorpha”) may be regarded as embodying his views respecting these animals.
The dissertation is illustrated by a plate, of which the accompanying woodcut, [Fig. 6], is a reduced copy. The figures are entitled (from left to right) 1. Troglodyta Bontii; 2. Lucifer Aldrovandi; 3. Satyrus Tulpii; 4. Pygmæus Edwardi. The first is a bad copy of Bontius’ fictitious “Ourang-outang,” in whose existence, however, Linnæus appears to have fully believed; for in the standard edition of the “Systema Naturæ,” it is enumerated as a second species of Homo; “H. nocturnus.” Lucifer Aldrovandi is a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus, “De Quadrupedibus digitatis viviparis,” Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645), entitled “Cercopithecus formæ raræ Barbilius vocatus et originem a china ducebat.” Hoppius is of opinion that this may be one of that cat-tailed people, of whom Nicolaus Köping affirms that they eat a boat’s crew, “gubernator navis” and all! In the “Systema Naturæ” Linnæus calls it in a note, Homo caudatus, and seems inclined to regard it as a third species of man. According to Temminck, Satyrus Tulpii is a copy of the figure of a Chimpanzee published by Scotin in 1738, which I have not seen. It is the Satyrus indicus of the “Systema Naturæ,” and is regarded by Linnæus as possibly a distinct species from Satyrus sylvestris. The last, named Pygmæus Edwardi, is copied from the figure of a young “Man of the Woods,” or true Orang-Utan, given in Edwards “Gleanings of Natural History” (1758).
Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. Not only had he the rare opportunity of examining a young Chimpanzee in the living state, but he became possessed of an adult Asiatic man-like Ape—the first and the last adult specimen of any of these animals brought to Europe for many years. With the valuable assistance of Daubenton, Buffon gave an excellent description of this creature, which, from its singular proportions, he termed the long-armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern Hylobates lar.
Thus when, in 1766, Buffon wrote the fourteenth volume of his great work, he was personally familiar with the young of one kind of African man-like Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic species—while the Orang-Utan and the Mandrill of Smith were known to him by report. Furthermore, the Abbé Prevost had translated a good deal of Purchas’ Pilgrims into French, in his “Histoire générale des Voyages” (1748), and there Buffon found a version of Andrew Battell’s account of the Pongo and the Engeco. All these data Buffon attempts to weld together into harmony in his chapter entitled “Les Orang-outangs ou le Pongo et le Jocko.” To this title the following note is appended:—
“Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales: Pongo nom de cet animal à Lowando Province de Congo.
“Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal à Congo que nous avons adopté. En est l’article que nous avons retranché.”
Thus it was that Andrew Battell’s “Engeco” became metamorphosed into “Jocko,” and, in the latter shape, was spread all over the world, in consequence of the extensive popularity of Buffon’s works. The Abbé Prevost and Buffon between them, however, did a good deal more disfigurement to Battell’s sober account than “cutting off an article.” Thus Battell’s statement that the Pongos “cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast,” is rendered by Buffon “qu’il ne peut parler quoiqu’il ait plus d’entendement que les autres animaux”; and again, Purchas’ affirmation, “He told me in conference with him, that one of these Pongos tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them,” stands in the French version, “un pongo lui enleva un petit negre qui passa un an entier dans la societé de ces animaux.”