126 The Irish Naturalist . August, 



Society of London has had six of these apes in the Regent's 

 Park Gardens at various times between 1887 and 1908,-^ but 

 none of them Hved more than a few weeks or months ; the 

 longest residence having been that of a female which sur- 

 vived from I\Iarch, 1896, until August of the same year.^ 

 At Berlin there have been several Gorillas on view ; 

 the first, brought from Africa in 1876, died in the autumn 

 of 1877 ; it was a young male and an interesting account 

 of its habits by Dr. Falkenstein is given in Prof. Hartmann's 

 book^ on the Anthropoid Apes. The second Berlin 

 specimen lived in captivity only a few weeks (1881) ; while 

 a third survived for about a year (1883-4).* The length 

 of life in captivity attained b}^ our Dublin female seems to 

 have been exceeded only by the famous specimen at the 

 Breslau Zoological Gardens, which at her death in 1904 had 

 been " naturalised " in Germany for about seven years. ^ 

 That ape, which also had a male Chimpanzee as companion, 

 w^as about four years old on her arrival in Europe, and 

 had therefore attained an age of eleven years at her death. 



When the Gorilla arrived, the Dublin ape-house w^as 

 already occupied by a Hoolock Gibbon, an Orang and two 

 Chimpanzees, so that visitors had the opportunity, rarely, 

 if ever, offered, of comparing living specimens of all four 

 types of Anthropoids. This remarkable assemblage was 

 terminated in March, 1915, by the death of the Orang, 

 but the other three genera of apes could be studied side 

 by side until the Gorilla's lamented death this year. 



Frequenters of the Dublin Zoological Gardens have there- 

 fore had unusual opportunities for watching the behaviour 

 of a Gorilla, and some account of the ape's characteristics 

 may well be placed on record. For man}^ of the particulars 

 given in this article I am indebted to Capt. B. B. Ferrar, 

 R.A.M.C., Superintendent of the Gardens, and to Mr. John 

 Supple, the head keeper of our monkej^-house, to whose 

 great care of the inmates the survival of the Gorilla through 



1 R. Lydekker. — " Gorilla " in Encycl. Brit., nth ed. Cambridge, 1910. 

 *My friend, Mr. R. I. Pocock, F.R.S., has kindly furnished me with 

 some particulars of the London Gorillas that were under his care. 



• R. Hartmann. — " Anthropoid Apes." London, 1885. 



* R. Lydekker. — " Royal Natural History," vol. i., 1893 (p. 46). 



5 F. Grabovsky. — Zeitschr.f. Natunvissenschaften, vol. xli., 1906, and 

 Vcrhandl.d. Gesellschaft Deiitsch. Naturforsch.u Aertze, Breslau, 1904, 



