297 



adult specimen. As the animal grows older, the liair becomes 

 gray. A male was killed four feet four inches in height, gray, 

 and having the lower third of the back almost bare of hair. 



The external characters of this animal are so different from 

 those of T. niger, (chimpanzee,) and from those of the gorilla, 

 that it may be considered a new species of the genus Troglodytes, 

 for which I propose the name of 2\ calvus. 



The most strikinjj external character which distinjjuishes the 

 T. calvus from the T. niger (to which alone it can be compared) 

 is the entire baldness of the head, which was seen in the four 

 specimens killed, both male and female ; the very young are not 

 bald, but the hair on the head is very thin. 



The T. niger has also a very black face, but the young is of a 

 darker flesh-color than the young T. calvus. The T. niger is 

 rare in the countries which I have explored, with the exception 

 of the Gaboon, Moonda, and Muni rivers, where it is more 

 abundant than south of the equator, where I have been ; I killed 

 but one, near Cape Lopez ; I saw another which had been killed 

 by the natives in the Camma country, which presented the same 

 external characters as the one I killed at. Cape Lopez. 



The natives of the Camma country call the T. niger ''^ Nschie- 

 go^" and the T. calvus " Nscliiego Mbouve,'^ the latter meaning 

 something like another tribe of the Nschiego. The Mpongwe 

 called the T. niger Nschiego, or the N'chego of Dr. Franquet. 

 The T. calvus builds a shelter made with the branches of trees, 

 elevated generally from twenty to thirty feet ; they tie together, 

 with wild vines the branches they have collected, and there is 

 below the shelter (which has the shape of an umbrella) a hori- 

 zontal branch on which they rest ; this horizontal branch is 

 always the first from the ground. The male lives under one 

 shelter, and the female under another, on a neighboring tree. 



I am aware that Dr. Franquet, of the French navy, who 

 resided at the Gaboon River, mentioned in a letter, dated Brest, 

 December 1, 1852, addressed to M. Is. Geoffrey St. Ililaire, 

 (and published in the Archives du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 tome X., livraisons 1 and 2,) that there are three species of an- 

 thropoid apes in Western Africa. The following are extracts 

 from this letter : (p. 93,) " At Gaboon I saw a number of 

 chimpanzees, all coming from the peninsula between the rivers 



