758 



NATURE 



[November 21, 1923 



Letters to the Editor. 



\Tlu Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions exprtsstd by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return^ nor to correspond with 

 the writers of rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part oj NATURE. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.'] 



The Gorilla's Foot. 



Sir Ray Lankester, in hLs recent book. " Great 

 and Small Things," makes the following statement 

 in the chapter on " The Gorilla of Sloane Street " : 



" An entirely erroneous figure of the gorilla's foot 

 is given by Mr. Akeley in the World's Work of October 

 1922. He gives valuable observations on the habits 

 of the gorillas made when hunting this animal in the 

 neighbourhood of Lake Kivu, in Central Africa. He 

 made casts of the head, hands, and feet of specimens 

 killed by him. But the cast of the foot is (as shown 

 in a photograph) strangely distorted, and made to 

 present a false resemblance to the foot of man. Since 

 Mr. Akeley was securing specimens of gorilla for the 

 American "Museum of Natural History m New York, 

 it is well that his mistake about the gorilla's foot 

 should be corrected at once." 



I have examined the cast of the foot made by 

 Mr. Akeley. who states that the cast was made in the 

 relaxed position after rigor mortis had passed away. 

 There has been no retouching or alteration, and the 

 photographs published in World's Work give a very 

 lair representation of it. The foot of Mr. Akeley's 

 old male gorilla undeniably differs in many details 

 from that of John, the young " Gorilla of Sloane 

 Street," and still more from that of an infant gorilla 

 formerly in the New York Zoological Park. 



Dr. i). J. Morton, an orthopaedist, has recently 

 published an important article on the evolution of 

 the human foot in the American Journal of Physical 

 Anthropology (Oct. -Dec. 1922), in which the structural 

 contrasts in the skeletons of infant and adult gorilla 

 feet are shown to be connected with the differences 

 in function and in body weight. Mr. Akeley's old 

 male gorilla foot is amazingly manlike in general 

 appearance ; his female gorilla foot shows a distinct 

 peroneus tertius muscle. No doubt the great toe 

 could be more or less abducted from the other digits, 

 but the cast represents the foot as it was in the relaxed 

 condition. There is no evidence from the cast that 

 the foot is " strangely distorted, and made to present 

 a false resemblance to the foot of man." 



From a copy of this cast which is being sent 

 to the British Museum (Natural History), English 

 naturalists will have an opportunity of judging 

 whether Sir Ray Lankester 's criticisms are justified. 



William K. Gregory. 



American Museum of Natural History, 

 New York, September 21. 



My " criticisms " quoted by Dr. William K. 

 Gregorv-^ refer to a text-figure published by Mr. 

 Akeley in the World's Work of October 1922. As to 

 whether this figure gives " a very fair representation " 

 of the cast of the gorilla's foot made by Mr. Akeley. 

 and what precisely Dr. Gregory means by " very fair," 

 we shall be able to judge when the promised copy 

 of the cast is received at the Natural History Museum. 

 My own experience is that a photographic camera 

 turned on to such an object as the cast of the foot 

 of a dead gorilla will yield a misleading, or even a 

 " distorted," picture ii special skill has not been 

 exercised in both the posing and the illumination of 



NO. 2821, VOL. II 2] 



the photographed object, and also in the manipulati 

 of the camera. 



I should be greatly pleased were Mr. Akeley 

 demonstrate that the foot of the gorilla from M01. 

 Mikeno is, as he supposes, unlike that of the other at 1 



gorillas long known to naturalists, as well as unlike 

 that of any known anthropoid. 



Fig. I is reproduced photographically from that 

 given by Mr. Akeley in the World's Work as rejv 

 senting a cast of the foot of a large gorilla, tak . 

 immediately after death. It is unUke any otl : 

 published figure of a gorilla's foot. I place h- 

 beside it the fierure of the plantar surface of t: 

 gorilla's foot (Fig. 2) as 

 recorded by Mr. Pocock, 

 of the Zoological Society 

 of London. I accept this 

 Fig. 2 as correct. It agrees 

 with all other statements 

 and illustrations prior to 

 that of Mr. Akeley. 



The explanation of this 

 discrepancy which appears 

 to me probable is that Mr. 

 Akeley's cast of the foot 

 of the gorilla — reproduced 

 here as Fig. i — has been 

 accidentally distorted, so 

 that the photograph is 

 misleading. It is highly 

 improbable that Fig. i 

 corerctly represents the 

 foot of a normal species or variety of gorilla. 



Since writing the above, I have received by the 

 courtesy of the publishers — Messrs. Heinemann — 

 advanced sheets of Mr. Akeley's new book called 

 " In Brightest Africa." My opinion that owing to 

 some unfortunate mistake the cast itself of the 

 gorilla's foot figured by Mr. Akeley is defective and 

 distorted is favoured by the photograph, labelled 

 " A Gorilla's Foot and Hand," which faces p. 230 

 of the new book. This photograph is not taken 

 from a cast but from the actual foot and hand of a 

 dead gorilla. It shows the plantar surface of the 

 foot, and this differs ver\^ widely from the same region 

 as shown in the cast under discussion, which is taken 



