GORILLAS— PITMAN 263 



effect on the gorillas. In consequence, the prospecting, which inci- 

 dentally has penetrated only the extreme southerly portion of the 

 forest, cannot be said to have caused undue disturbance. Prospect- 

 ing on a systematic scale has taken place in the forest, particularly 

 in the valleys, in the vicinity of the high hills, Niwashenya, Niguru, 

 and Kasatora. When I was in that neighborhood at the beginning of 

 November, there were frequent complaints from isolated pairs of 

 natives digging pits that gorillas were too close to be pleasant. Even 

 a lot of blasting seemed to have little other effect than to scare them 

 away temporarily. 



The previous brief reference to gorilla beds can be amplified con- 

 siderably. Several were measured and found to vary in size from 

 3 feet by 2^ feet to 4 feet by 3 feet, the latter presumably the sleep- 

 ing quarters of the big males. The thickness of the bed platforms 

 ranged from 8 to 15 inches. Three groups of beds — many more were 

 seen — were critically examined. The lowest bed was 6 feet above 

 the ground, the majority 10 feet or over, and four (two in one group 

 and one in each of the others) between 20 and 25 feet. In one group 

 of four, the beds, sited in a rough circle around a forested hollow 

 at the top of an elevated valley, were respectively at intervals of 

 10, 15, 30, and 50 paces in the circle, and all plainly visible to each 

 other. Groups of beds seen in trees on the forested slopes of valleys 

 were also sited so as to be clearly visible from each other. As in the 

 case of the volcanoes' representatives these beds are singularly filthy, 

 and the edges often festooned with excrement. 



In the Kayonsa tree-climbing is customary, and beds normally ^ 

 constructed well above the ground. It is probable that the same 

 platforms are used on several consecutive nights. 



The highest bed seen was nearly 50 feet above the ground, and 

 evidently constructed the previous night, but fortunately the pic- 

 ture taken by His Excellency the Governor of Uganda does not do 

 justice to the subject. It would have been more effective had a 

 Wambutte been perched on the edge of the platform. Its founda- 

 tion consisted of sturdy, upright tree-tops as much as 2i/^ inches in 

 diameter, which had been snapped like matchsticks. As the descrip- 

 tion of this novel method of bed construction is certain to provoke 

 criticism and unlikely to pass unchallenged, it is fortunate that 

 His Excellency and two of his staff should have been present when 

 the 50-foot bed was observed, as their corroborative evidence is 

 irrefutable. 



» During 1936, the Acting Game Warden, Capt. R. J. Salmon, viewed some of the 

 Kayonsa gorillas and found them amiably disposed. There is nothing, as a result of his 

 visit, to add to these comprehensive notes, except that he found "two big groups of nests, of 

 different nights, all on the ground with no overhead protection apart from the lean-to 

 effect of big tree-trunks." — C. R. S. P. 



