Transcribe Hornaday, W. T. Letter to Ward, Henry A. (1878-09-14)

another Orang & the day we came down I killed 4, all small however. On the way down we overtook an old Chinaman, one of my mias hunters, who had two dead ones in his boat for me. On getting home we measured our six Orangs amd con-found the luck! One of the old Chinaman's orangs was </u 4 ft 6 inches > high, a good half inch taller than our Rajah Padang. This cast quite a gloom over us all, and I did not go out again after Orangs for some days. It was really too disgusting, too bad altogether. But there was no help for it, tape lines & figures don't lie, so we had to name him the "Maharajah of Simujan", which is of course greater than a plain Rajah. But his body was not so huge nor his face so broad as the Rajah's were, after all. You know Wallace argues that Borneo Orangs never exceed 4 ft 2 in, in height. Judging from his own specimens & all others collected by other naturalists up to the time he wrote his book. Now give us room according to the size of our mias. And I am more & more convinced as I go along that there is no small species of Orang, no Simia morio. But on that point we must go slow until the returns are all in.

    I got one foetus, but alas! it had been shot through & 

through & was so mutilated I threw it away. </u Hope > to get another. Have put one nice little baby mias entire in spirits, and I will before I quit preserve two or three large brains on the chance of someone wanting them.

    Have had no time to spare hunting monkeys and small

fry, but still we have taken in a few good things since I sent off my list. Notably: 1 </u fine > Nasalis larvatus skin, 1 Faliopithecus ^variegatua^, skin very beautiful, 1 Pteromys skin, 1 Hylobates con- color, skin & skel, 1 Lemur (Stenops) tardigradus , skin (& skel), 1 Presbytes, skin, 2 Argus giganteus, male 1 skin, 1 skel. 2 vivema, skels. 1 Felis (!) (small tiger.cat) skin. 1 Skull of 12 foot Crocodilus porosus, & the usual complement of snakes, &e Have also 6 Orang skulls brought in by natives @ 50 cts each for large perfect ones. I buy </u all > I can get hold of, good & bad, the bad ones to put in skins when stuffed. I will give you the height of the orangs, one by one, got since my last letter taken in regular order from No 11 to No 31