216 GORILLA 



attack the elephant and beat him to death with a stick; it does not 

 carry off women from the native villages; it does not even build 

 itself a house of leaves and twigs in the forest trees and sit on the 

 roof as has been confidently reported of it. It is not gregarious even, 

 and the numerous stories of its attacking in great numbers have not 

 a grain of truth in them. 



"It lives in the loneliest portions of the dense African jungle, 

 preferring deep wooded valleys and also nigged heights. The high 

 plains also, whose surface is strewn with immense boulders, seem to 

 be favorite haunts. Water is found everywhere in this part of Africa, 

 but I have noticed that the gorilla is always found very near to a 

 plentiful supply." 



He farther states that it is a restless beast rarely found in the same 

 place two days at a time and this is caused by its struggle to obtain 

 food, which consists of berries, pineapple leaves and other vegetable 

 matter and of these it is a huge 'feeder.' Besides the things already 

 mentioned it eats the wild sugar cane and a nut with a very hard 

 shell which it cracks with its powerful jaws. 



It sleeps sitting on the ground with its back against the trunk of a 

 tree, and only the young ascend a tree to sleep amid the branches, 

 and possibly the females may also occasionally do so. 



Gorillas are very shy and at the least alarm the female runs off 

 shrieking accompanied by the young if she has any. "Then the male, 

 sitting for a moment with a savage frown on his face, slowly rises to 

 his feet, and looking with glowing and malignant eyes at the intruders, 

 begins to beat his breast, and lifting up his round head, utters his 

 frightful roar. This begins with several sharp barks like an enraged 

 or mad dog, whereupon ensues a long, deeply guttural rolling roar, 

 continued for over a minute, and which, doubled and multiplied by 

 the resounding echoes of the forest, fills the hunter's ears like the 

 deep rolling thunder of the approaching storm. The horror of this 

 animal's appearance at this time is beyond description. It seems as 

 monstrous as a nightmare dream, so impossible a piece of hideousness, 

 that, were it not for the danger of its savage approach, the hunter 

 might fancy himself in some ugly dream." A hunter reserves his 

 fire until the last moment for the onset of a gorilla no man could 

 withstand for "one blow of that huge paw, with its bony claws, and 

 the poor hunter's entrails are torn out, his breast bone broken, or 

 his skull crushed." 



"His walk is a waddle from side to side, his hind legs which are 

 very short, being evidently somewhat inadequate to the proper support 



