ZOOLOGY 3i 



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tectorate. It is not improbable also, from wliat the natives told me, that 

 this ape further existed within the last few hundred years on the western 

 side of Mount Elgon. All this evidence of its having inhabited countries 

 nearer and nearer to the eastern side of Africa is interesting, because fossil 

 remains of the chim^janzee have been found in Western India; and it is 

 the opinion of some naturalists that the anthropoid apes, together with 

 their congener, man, were evolved in Asia. Diminishing forest, and, above 

 all, the evolution, multiplication, and rivalry of mankind, extinguislied the 

 anthropoid apes in India, and drove the ancestors of the chimpanzee and 

 gorilla westwards into Africa, across countries which in not verv remote 

 periods were sufficiently forested to admit of the sojourn of these tree-loving 

 creatures. 



At the present day the chimpanzee is limited in its distribution — so 

 far as the Uganda Protectorate is concerned— to the Bugoma and other 

 forests in L'nvoro near the east coast of the Albert Xyanza, and to similar 

 stretches of forest in Eastern Toro, Northern Ankole. and perhaps also the 

 western slopes of Kuwen/ori and tlie 8emliki Valley. When the author 

 of this book visited the District of Toro and Mount Euwenzori, he made 

 many inquiries from tlie natives about the chimpanzee. Thev knew of 

 this ape's existence in certain forests, but declared they very seldom met 

 it, as it was exceptionally shy. When cut ofi" from retreat, however, it 

 -could display great strength and savagery, and the natives spoke of it 

 with a certain amount of awe. They told the same stories about the 

 chimpanzee's habits as have been reported by Emin Pasha and others, 

 such as its building "houses" (shelters) in the trees (though they relate 

 that the adult male chimpanzee often sleeps at the base of a tree with 

 his back against the trunk in the attitude given in the accompanying 

 picture).* [Male chimpanzees were said, as in West Africa, to be ready 

 to attack undefended women with the apparent intention of violating 

 them. In acts like these, however, I believe anthropoid apes, like their 

 near allies, the baboons, to be actuated by a sort of humorous spitefulness 

 wluch delights in frightening and annoying persons of whom they are 

 not afraid. In these attacks the males are often given to great indecency 

 of gesture without any defined intention of attacks on the chastity of 

 the women they are annoying. I should, however, certainly pity any 

 unfortunate woman carried ofi' for connubial purposes by a male ape or 

 baboon, since she would almost certainly be torn in pieces by the jealous 

 females, who, when adult, display the deepest jealousy of human beings of 

 their own sex. The natives of Toro repeat the assertions of Emin Pasha 

 to the efl'ect that the chimpanzees are rather fond of beating with their 



* This jiicture is a photograph taken from an ailult male oliimpanzee obtained 

 in Toro. Its skin is now in the British Museum. 



