M. Du Chaillu's 'Adventures in Equatorial Africa.' 



of them were so stretched that it would be quite impossible ever to 

 reduce them to a natural state. Since I saw them, I have been in- 

 formed that some more specimens of the Gorilla have been stuffed 

 by Mr. Bartlett ; and this family of " Mr., Mrs., and Miss Gorilla," 

 as they are called, affords an interesting group of objects to the 

 fashionable visitors. 



I did not observe a single specimen which would show that the 

 collector had examined any country that had not before been open 

 to European collectors ; in fact, all the specimens exhibited were 

 such as might be obtained from, and may have been sent home by, 

 the missionaries and traders at the different stations on the west 

 coast of Africa. I was also astonished to find species which I had 

 hitherto believed to be local to parts of the coast distant from each 

 otber, all here said to be found in one single limited locality. 



I may observe that perhaps M. Du Chaillu uses the phrase " new 

 and undescribed " in a peculiar sense; for he calls the 'wild Bull' 

 " a quite new and hitherto undescribed species of Buffalo " (p. 306), 

 yet he terms it Bos hrachyceros (or, as he chooses to write it. Bos 

 brachycheros) — the name by which I described and figured it in 

 1837. 



As far as I can understand, it seems to be the popular belief that 

 nothing was known of the Gorilla and its osteology until M. Du 

 Chaillu arrived here with his collection ; indeed, the editor of a leading 

 literary and scientific weekly journal said to me the other day, " You 

 don't mean to say that there are any bones of the Gorilla in this 

 country except those brought by M. Du Chaillu?" I think the best 

 answer to that question is in the fact that the only figure of the ske- 

 leton of the Gorilla in M. Du Chaillu' s book, viz. the figure of the 

 "Skeleton of Man and the Gorilla," at p. 370, is not from any 

 skeleton that he brought, but from that in the British Museum ; 

 nor is it an original figure, but a copy of the photograph taken by 

 Mr. Fenton for the Trustees of the British Museum, and now sold 

 at the Kensington Museum for a few pence. The upper bone of 

 the left arm (which in the specimen is broken and repaired, and 

 shortened) has been made perfect ; but the artist, in making the 

 alteration, has forgotten to increase its length, so as to make it of 

 the same length as the perfect bone on the right side. It is not 

 correctly copied ; for the skeleton of the Gorilla is made stronger, 

 broader, and more powerful, while that of the Man is proportionally 

 diminished, so as to give anything but an accurate comparison. 



The animal represented in the frontispiece is not from any speci- 

 men he collected, but is copied, with a very slight and prudish alter- 

 ation, from M. Geoffrey's figure, pubhshed in the 'Archives du 

 Muse'um,' vol. x. p. 1, from the specimen in the Paris Museum, and 

 there called Gorilla gina. The figure of the "young Gorilla " given 

 at p. 206 is from pi. 7. f. 2 of the same paper, also from a specimen 

 in the Paris Museum. This paper was published in 1858. 



Without entering into particulars with regard to the habits of the 

 adult Gorilla, which we have not had the moans of voritying, it is evi- 

 dent that we must make great allowance for the exaggeration which 



