Stretch from fingers to fingers across body, 6 feet 1 inch.
Breadth of face, including callosities, 11 inches." Now, in these
dimensions, there is palpably one error; for in every Orang yet
measured by any naturalist, an expanse of arms of 6 feet 1 inch
corresponds to a height of about 3 feet 6 inches, while the
largest specimens of 4 feet to 4 feet 2 inches high, always have
the extended arms as much as 7 feet 3 inches to 7 feet 8 inches.
It is, in fact, one of the characters of the genus to have the
arms so long that an animal standing nearly erect can rest its
fingers on the ground. A height of 4 feet 6 inches would
therefore require a stretch of arms of at least 8 feet! If it
were only 6 feet to that height, as given in the dimensions
quoted, the animal would not be an Orang at all, but a new genus
of apes, differing materially in habits and mode of progression.
But Mr. Johnson, who shot this animal, and who knows Orangs well,
evidently considered it to be one; and we have therefore to judge
whether it is more probable that he made a mistake of two feet in
the stretch of the arms, or of one foot in the height. The latter
error is certainly the easiest to make, and it will bring his
animal into agreement, as to proportions and size, with all those
which exist in Europe. How easy it is to be deceived as to the
height of these animals is well shown in the case of the Sumatran
Orang, the skin of which was described by Dr. Clarke Abel. The
captain and crew who killed this animal declared that when alive
he exceeded the tallest man, and looked so gigantic that they
thought he was 7 feet high; but that, when he was killed and lay
upon the ground, they found he was only about 6 feet. Now it will
hardly be credited that the skin of this identical animal exists
in the Calcutta Museum, and Mr. Blyth, the late curator, states
"that it is by no means one of the largest size"; which means