The title-page of the work above alluded to runs as follows:—­

Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: 

OR, THE ANATOMY OF A PYGMIE

Compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man.

To which is added, A philological essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges of the ancients.

Wherein it will appear that they are all either APES or MONKEYS, and not MEN, as formerly pretended.

By EDWARD TYSON M.D.

Fellow of the Colledge of Physicians, and the Royal Society:  Physician to the Hospital of Bethlem, and Reader of Anatomy at Chirurgeons-Hall.

LONDON: 

Printed for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul’s Church-yard; and Daniel Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple-Bar and are to be had of Mr. Hunt at the Repository in Gresham-Colledge.  M DC XCIX.

It bears the authority of the Royal Society:—­

17 deg. Die Maij, 1699.

Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris, &c. 
Authore Edvardo Tyson, M.D.  R.S.S.

JOHN HOSKINS, V.P.R.S.

The Pygmy described in this work was, as a matter of fact, a chimpanzee, and its skeleton is at this present moment in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.  Tyson’s granddaughter married a Dr. Allardyce, who was a physician of good standing in Cheltenham.  The “Pygmie” formed a somewhat remarkable item of her dowry.  Her husband presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, where it was fortunately carefully preserved until, quite recently, it was transferred to its present position.

At the conclusion of the purely scientific part of the work the author added four Philological Essays, as will have appeared from his title-page.  The first of these is both the longest and the most interesting, and has alone been selected for republication in this volume.

This is not the place to deal with the scientific merit of the main body of Tyson’s work, but it may at least be said that it was the first attempt which had been made to deal with the anatomy of any of the anthropoid apes, and that its execution shows very conspicuous ability on the part of its author.

Tyson, however, was not satisfied with the honour of being the author of an important morphological work; he desired to round off his subject by considering its bearing upon the, to him, wild and fabulous tales concerning pigmy races.  The various allusions to these races met with in the pages of the older writers, and discussed in his, were to him what fairy tales are to us.  Like modern folk-lorists, he wished to explain, even to euhemerise them, and bring