88 



The papau tree (Carica papayci). 



The banana (Musa sapientium), and another species (Musa 

 paradisiacal). 



The Amomum Afzelii and Am. yrandiflorum. 



A tree, with a shelled fruit, like a walnut, which the gorilla 

 breaks open with the blow of a stone. 



A tree, also botanically unknown, with a fruit like a cherry. 



Such fruits and other rich and nutritious productions of the 

 vegetable kingdom, constitute the staple food of the gorilla, as they 

 do of the chimpanzee. The molar teeth, which alone truly indicate 

 the diet of an animal, accord with the statements as to the 

 frugivorous character of the gorilla : but they also siifficiently 

 answer to an omnivorous habit to suggest that the eggs and callow 

 brood of nests discovered in the trees frequented by the gorilla 

 might not be unacceptable. 



The gorilla makes a sleeping place like a hammock, connecting 

 the branches of a sheltered and thickly leaved part of a tree by means 

 of the long toiigh slender stems of parasitic plants, and lining it 

 with the broad dried fronds of palms, or with long grass. .- This 

 hammock-like abode may be seen at different heights, from 10 feet to 

 40 feet from the ground, but there is never more than one such 

 nest in a tree. 



They avoid the abodes of man, but are most commonly seen in 

 the months of September, October, and November, after the negroes 

 have gathered their outlying rice crops, and have returned from the 

 'bush' to the village. So observed, they are described to be usually 

 in pairs; or, if more, the addition consists of a few young ones, of 

 different ages, and apparently of one family. The gorilla is not 

 gregarious. The parents may be seen sitting on a branch, resting 

 the back against the tree-trunk the hair being generally rubbed off 

 the back of the old gorilla from that habit perhaps munching their 

 fruits, whilst the young gorillas are at play, leaping and swinging 

 from branch to branch, with hoots or harsh cries of boisterous 

 mirth. 



If the old male be seen alone, or when in quest of food, he is 

 usually armed with a stout stick, which the negroes aver to be the 

 weapon with which he attacks his chief enemy the elephant. Not 

 that the elephant directly or intentionally injures the gorilla, but, 

 deriving its subsistence from the same substances, the ape regards 

 the great proboscidian as a hostile intruder. When therefore he 

 discerns the elephant pulling down and wrenching off the branches 



