I THE GORILLA 63 



species spread over the geographical area of the 

 genus. 



The same excellent observer, from whom I 

 have borrowed the preceding account of the habits 

 of the adult Chimpanzee, published fifteen years 

 ago, 1 an account of the GORILLA, which has, in its 

 most essential points, been confirmed by subse- 

 quent observers, and to which so very little has 

 really been added, that in justice to Dr. Savage I 

 give it almost in full. 



" It should be borne in mind that my account is based upon 

 the statements of the aborigines of that region (the Gaboon). 

 In this connection, it may also be proper for me to remark, 

 that having been a missionary resident for several years, study- 

 ing, from habitual intercourse, the African mind and character, 

 I felt myself prepared to discriminate and decide upon the 

 probability of their statements. Besides, being familiar with 

 the history and habits of its interesting congener ( Trog. niger, 

 Geoff.), I was able to separate their accounts of the two animals, 

 which, having the same locality and a similarity of habit, are 

 confounded in the minds of the mass, especially as but few 

 such as traders to the interior and huntsmen have ever seen 

 the animal in question. 



" The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is derived, 

 and whose territory forms its habitat, is the Mpongwe, occupying 

 both banks of the River Gaboon, from its mouth to some fifty 

 or sixty miles upward. . . . 



" If the word * Pongo' be of African origin, it is probably a 

 corruption of the word Mpongwc, the name of the tribe on the 

 banks of the Gaboon, and hence applied to the region they 

 inhabit. Their local name for the Chimpanzee is Ench6-eko, as 



1 Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytea 

 Gorilla. Boston Journal of Natural History, 1847. 



