28 Professor Oive?iy [Feb. 4, 



the lower branches of the gorilla's dwelling tree, he will gain an easier 

 victory ; and the huge canines, with which only the male gorilla is 

 furnished, doubtless have been assigned to him for defending his mate 

 and offspring. 



The skeleton of the old male gorilla obtained for the British 

 Museum in 1857, shows an extensive fracture, badly united, of the left 

 arm-bone, which has been shortened, and gives evidence of long 

 suffering from abscess and partial exfoliation of bone. The upper 

 canines have been wrenched out or shed, some time before death, for 

 their sockets have become absorbed. 



The redeeming quality in this fragmentary history of the gorilla is 

 the male's care of his family, and the female's devotion to her young. 



It is reported that a French natural-history collector, accompanying 

 a party of the Gaboon negroes into the gorilla woods, surprised a 

 female with two young ones on a large boabdad (Adansonia), which 

 stood some distance from the nearest clump. She descended the tree, 

 with her youngest clinging to her neck, and made off rapidly on all 

 fours to the forest, and escaped. The deserted young one on seeing 

 the approach of the men began to utter piercing cries : the mother, 

 having disposed of her infant in safety, returned to rescue the older 

 offspring, but before she could descend with it her retreat was cut off. 

 Seeing one of the negroes level his musket at her, she, clasping her 

 young with one arm, waved the other, as if deprecating the shot ; 

 the ball passed through her heart, and she fell with her young one 

 clinging to her. It was a male, and survived the voyage to Havre, 

 where it died on arriving. Professor Owen had examined the skeleton 

 of this young gorilla in the museum of natural history at Caen, and 

 was indebted to Professor Deslongchamps, Dean of the Faculty of 

 Sciences in that town, for drawings of this rare specimen. 



There might be more difficulty in obtaining a young gorilla for 

 exhibition than a young chimpanzee. But as no full-grown chimpanzee 

 has ever been captured, we cannot expect the larger and much more 

 powerful adult gorilla to be ever taken alive. 



A bold negro, the leader of an elephant-hunting expedition, being 

 offered a hundred dollars if he would bring back a live gorilla, replied, 

 '* If you gave me the weight of yonder hill in gold coins, I could not 

 do it ! " 



All the terms of the aborigines in reference to the gorilla imply 

 their opinion of his close kinship to themselves. But they have a low 

 opinion of his intelligence. They say that during the rainy season he 

 builds a house without a roof. The natives on their hunting ex- 

 cursions light fires for their comfort and protection by night ; when 

 they have gone away, they affirm that the gorilla will come down and 

 warm himself at the smouldering embers, but has not wit enough to 

 throw on more wood, out of the surrounding abundance, to keep the 

 fire burning, — " the stupid old man ! " 



Every account of the habits of a wild animal obtained at second 

 hand from the reports of aborigines has its proportion of " apocrypha." 

 The lecturer had restricted himself to the statements that hud most 



