THE GREAT CHIMPANZEE. 



391 



Society a premature indication of a species which might prove to he a sexual, or a local, 

 larger and stronger, variety of Chimpanzee. 



My friend Mr. Samuel Stutchbury of Bristol, having received similar statements of 

 the existence of a large and formidable species of Chimpanzee in the Gaboon district, 

 from the officers of vessels trading from Bristol to the west coast of Africa, urged them 

 to endeavour to obtain specimens of it ; and the result was that Captain George Wag- 

 staff succeeded in procuring at the Gaboon river, in December 1847, three skulls of the 

 large species and one of the smaller species of Chimpanzee, all adult. 



One of the skulls of the large species {Troglodytes Gorilla*) was of a very old male ; 

 the length of the skull was I H inches (0-29), with the molars worn nearly to the stumps 

 and the crown of the canine reduced, partly by fracture, partly by attrition, to its basal 

 portion : its pulp had been inflamed, and had produced ulceration of the alveolus. 



A second skull (Pis. LXI. LXII. and LXIII.) was also of a male of equal size, with 

 the full dentition of maturity, but a younger animal, with merely the summits of the 

 cusps of the molars and the margins of the incisors slightly worn. 



The third skull of the large Troglodytes was of a female, 9 inches (0'23) long, with the 

 mature dentition, and with the molars not more worn than in the younger adult male. 



The fourth skull was of a female adult Chimpanzee, 7i inches (0-18.5) in length, of 

 the smaller species {Troglodytes niger), with the complete permanent dentition, and the 

 teeth more abraded than in the two preceding skulls. Mr. Stutchbury afterwards 

 transmitted to me the cranium of an old male Troglodytes niger, 8* inches (0-220) 

 in length. The lower jaw was wanting in each of the foregoing specimens, and the 

 occipital or basal part of the skull had been more or less fractured ; the skull of the 

 young but full-grown male of the great Troglodytes Gorilla being the most perfect. 



Captain WagstaflF reached Bristol in a broken state of health, and died soon after his 

 arrival. The only information relative to these rare and valuable contributions to 

 zoology which Mr. Stutchbury was able to obtain from him was that the natives, when 

 they Tucceed in killing one of these Chimpanzees, make a ' fetish ' of the cranium. The 

 specimens bore indications of the sacred marks in broad red stripes crossed by a white 

 stripe, of some pigment which could be washed off. Their superstitious reverence of 

 these hideous remains of their formidable and dreaded enemy adds to the difficulty which 

 a stranger has to contend with in obtaining specimens. 



* In the original description of these specimens I had called the species after its discoverer; but I subse- 

 quently received the memoir by Dr. Savage and Prof. Wyman in which the name Gorilla is proposed for it, 

 which I have therefore substituted for the name Troglodytes Savagei. which appears in the abstract of the pre- 

 sent memoir in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society.' Feb. 22, 1848, p. 27. 



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