378 Zoological Society : — 



of the full-grown Troglodytes gorilla are now set up in the Museum 

 of the College, and in the British Museum ; and Dr. Gray has tinally 

 acquired for the National Collection the stuffed specimen of a nearly 

 adult male Gorilla. 



All the foregoing specimens were obtained from a part of the west 

 coast of tropical Africa traversed by the rivers ' Danger ' and * Ga- 

 boon,' in latitudes 1° to 15° S. 



A corresponding series of illustrations, first crania, then the 

 skeleton, finally an entire specimen of the Troglodytes goinlla, 

 have successively reached the Museum of the Garden of Plants, 

 Paris, and have afforded materials for interesting and instructive 

 memoirs from the accomplished Professors in that noble establish- 

 ment for extending and diffusing the science of Natural History. 



De Blainville had caused a lithograph to be prepared of the 

 skeleton of the Gorilla, shortly before his demise. His successor, 

 Prof. Duvernoy, communicated a description of this skeleton to the 

 Academy of Sciences in 1853, which is published, with some inter- 

 esting particulars of the anatomy of the soft parts, in the.*x\rchives 

 du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle,' tome vii. (1855). The Memoirs 

 and Observations by his accomplished colleague the Professor of 

 Mammalogy and Ornithology, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, on the 

 Gorilla will be found in the ' Comptes Rendus de T Academic des 

 Sciences,' January 19, 1852, and subsequent numbers ; in the * Revue 

 de Zoologie,' No. II., 1853 ; the whole being summed up in the 

 part of his excellent * Description des Mammiferes nouveaux,' &c. 

 4to, which appeared in vol. x. of the * Archives du Museum, 1858.' 



The differences in the results of the observations by the American, 

 French, and English authors, relate chiefly to the interpretation of 

 the facts observed. Dr. Wyman agrees with Prof. Owen in referring 

 the Gorilla to the same genus as the Chimpanzee, but he differs 

 from him in regarding the latter as being more nearly allied to the 

 Human kind. Professors I. Geoff. St. Hilaire and Duvernoy regard 

 the differences in the osteology, dentition, and external characters of 

 the Gorilla to be of generic importance, and enter it in the Zoolo- 

 gical Catalogue as Gorilla Gina, the nomen triviale being taken 

 from *Weggeena;' * N. Gina' and *D. jina,' as the name of the 

 beast in the Gaboon tongue, has been diversely written by voyagers*. 

 The French naturalists also concur with the American in placing 

 the Gorilla below the Chimpanzee in the scale. The author returned 

 to the discussion of those questions at the conclusion of his paper, 

 when he also referred to the notion current in some works that the 

 long-armed apes (Ilylobates), and not the Orangs or Chimpanzees, 

 were the most anthropoid of apes. 



Entering upon the description of the exterior characters of the 



* The main discrepancy, in regard to matter of fact, is that the arms of the 

 Gorilla are stated by Isid. Geoffroy, to be much longer, whilst Prof. Owen 

 found them to be relatively shorter, than those of the Chimpanzee. 



« R J de proportions presque humaines Genre I. Troglodytes. 



\beaucoup plus longs que chez I'homme ... Genre II. Gorilla." 



Isid. Geoffr., p. 15 



