GORILLA ALMOST MAN? 241 
when I was taking the moving picture of a mother 
and two youngsters, and an active man could have 
walked up the inclined trees these gorillas were on 
about as easily as they did. Nor did I see any evi- 
dences of their having been in trees. The German, 
Eduard Reichenow, who observed gorillas in this 
same area, agrees that the gorilla is seldom in trees: 
While travelling, both kinds of apes (the gorilla and the 
chimpanzee) move on the ground; yet the gorilla is much more 
a stranger to tree living than the chimpanzee. . . . If the 
gorilla climbs a tree in search of food, he again climbs down 
the same trunk. Also at the approach of danger he is not 
capable of swinging himself from tree to tree as the chimpanzee 
does. 
The hand of the gorilla is as interesting to me as his 
foot. If you look at the illustration of the plaster cast 
you will see that it looks much like a man’s, finger- 
nails and all. You will see that the fingers are bent 
over. When running he puts his knuckles on the 
ground. Itisa peculiarity of the gorilla that when his 
arms are extended his fingers are always bent over. 
He can’t straighten them out except when his wrist 
is bent. I can take the hand of the mummified baby 
gorilla when its wrist is bent and put it over a stick 
and then straighten his wrist and his fingers will close 
over the stick so that I can lift him off the ground and 
hang him up in this fashion. I suppose that this 
peculiar characteristic is a legacy of his arboreal life 
which has not left him even in all the years he has 
been developing heels, muscles, and toes which are 
good for ground work only. 
