576 



THE POPULAR SCLENGE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



had two illnesses since he was sold to Dr. Falken- 

 stein, of the Prussian Natural History Expedition, 

 for two gallons of rum, and exchanged his chain 

 in an African village for the more tolerable con- 

 ditions of his European career. Perhaps he was 

 too young when the hunters took him to have any 

 dreams now of the deep, cool, dark forest, the 

 great luscious fruits, the glorious climbs, and 

 bounds, and fights, the long migrating journeys 

 of the gray-coated community, the booming, in- 

 articulate speech which was the language of his 

 tribe ; and it may be that he is happy enough in 

 his artificial life. It includes all the necessaries 

 and many of the luxuries of civilization. He goes 

 to bed at eight every evening, " in a very com- 

 fortable bed, and sleeps till eight in the morning," 

 his attendant told us, " always lying on his side, 

 with his hand under his cheek on the pillow, like 

 a man," and he eats numerous meals with unfail- 

 ing appetite. Once a day he has an ample repast 

 of roast meat and potatoes ; and his breakfast, 

 luncheon, and supper, consist of milk, wine-and- 

 water, bread, rice, eggs, fruit, and vegetables. 

 He is on the best of terms with his attendant, and 

 it was very funny to see him lying negligently on 

 his back in a slanting-upward position on the 

 ladder, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, one 

 hand dangling downward, and the other thrown 

 round the neck of his friend, as the latter repeat- 

 ed his brief formula to a freshly-arrived batch of 

 spectators. Mr. Pongo had quite an irresistible 



air of enjoying the proceeding; he rolled his 

 tongue about, and when the sentence, " His pres- 

 ent value is £5,000 ! " was spoken, he withdrew 

 his arm, gave the speaker a friendly cuff, as who 

 should say : " What ! you're at it again, are you V 

 Fetch 'em with figures, my boy ! " and dived rap- 

 idly over and under the rung of the ladder, look- 

 ing at the audience upside-down from between 

 his own legs, with a composed gravity infinitely 

 comical. He never attempts to stand upright ; 

 he is too heavy, his attendant explained, and his 

 legs are not yet strong enough to support his 

 weight. But it is expected that he will grow to 

 a height of six feet, and then stand upright, as 

 the full-grown gorilla has been seen by travelers 

 to do. At present his mode of progression is 

 like that of a tumbler who is about to be picked 

 up suddenly by a pinch behind from the clown in 

 the ring. He walks on his feet and his hands — 

 the latter turned in, fist-shape, and looking like 

 small club-feet — and his back slopes gently down 

 from his broad shoulders to his thin, misshapen 

 flanks. Mr. Pongo is an interesting if not pre- 

 cisely a fascinating animal, and the strongest 

 proof of his quaint suggestion of kinship with his 

 visitors is, that one is never free from a queer 

 sense of bad manners in asking questions about 

 him before his grave, black face; and that one 

 leaves him with a wish that he might have some- 

 thing to do, or at least something to read. 



— Spectator. 



Siberian Natural History. — Dr. 0. Finsch, late- 

 ly returned from a scientific expedition to Siberia, 

 has opened at Bremen an exhibition of the ethno- 

 graphic and natural history collections made by 

 him during his travels. The specimens have been 

 duly classified by Dr. Finsch himself, and, ac- 

 cording to Hie Natur, whose account of these 

 valuable collections we follow, give a good gen- 

 eral idea of the kind of life led by the inhabitants 

 of Western Siberia; in this respect they surpass 

 even the Imperial Museums of St. Petersburg 

 and Moscow. The inhabitants of the whole re- 

 gion of the Obi, lying north of the confluence of 

 the Irtish with that stream, live exclusively by 

 fishing, hunting, and reindeer-breeding. The rein- 

 deer is the principal source of their wealth, but 

 the herds have been ravaged during the last forty 

 or fifty years by splenitis, and thus the people 

 have been reduced to great straits. For instance, 

 we are informed that Ivan Taisin, Prince of Od- 

 dorsk, who twenty years ago owned 7,000 rein- 

 deer, now has only 700. Dr. Finsch's ethno- 



graphical collection consists of the following 

 groups : 1. Women's and children's clothing, ar- 

 ticles of feminine adornment, needles, and thread, 

 etc. ; 2. Household furniture and culinary uten- 

 sils ; 3. Men's clothing ; 4. Instruments used in 

 hunting and' trapping ; 5. Sundry other imple- 

 ments, together with requisites for smoking ; 6. 

 Fishing outfit ; 1. Articles used in public sports 

 and in gaming; 8. Reindeer-harness ; and, 9. Ob- 

 jects used in religious worship. Besides, there 

 is a complete state dress of a Tungu notable, as 

 also sundry specimens of Turkistan and Siberian 

 manufactures. The natural history collection in- 

 cludes a portable herbarium, a great herbarium 

 of plants from the Altai repion, mosses, arctic ber- 

 ries, butterflies, beetles, bees, flics, locusts, spiders, 

 shells, reptiles, fishes, and birds, the last in great 

 variety. Then there is a collection of human 

 skulls, and a number of paleontological specimens. 

 Finally, the economic products of Siberia are 

 represented by specimens of skins, farm-produce, 

 manufactures, ores, and metals. 



