Prof. Owen on the Gorilla. 379 



adult male Gorilla, the stuffed skin of which is now in the British 

 Museum, Prof. Owen first called attention to the shortness, almost 

 absence, of the neck, due to the backward articulation of the head 

 to the trunk and the concomitant development of the spines of the 

 neck-vertebra? ; also to the chin which, in the usual pose of the 

 head, descends below the manubrium sterni ; to the great size of the 

 scapuhje, to the elevation of the acromion, and the oblique position 

 of the clavicles which rise from their sternal attachments obliquely 

 to above the level of the angles of the jaw. The brain-case, low and 

 narrow, passes in the old male in an almost straight line from the 

 occiput to the superorbital ridge, the prominence of which gives the 

 most forbidding feature to the physiognomy of the Gorilla. It is 

 a feature strongly marked on the skeleton, but is exaggerated in 

 the stuffed animal by the thick supraciliary roll of integument 

 which forms a scowling penthouse over the small deep-set eyes. 

 The nose is a more prominent feature than in the Chimpanzee or 

 Orang-utan ; there is a slight median rise along its upper half, 

 answering to the feeble prominence of the same part of the nose- 

 bones, but the lower or alar part of the nose offers two thick pro- 

 jections, arching, each across its own nostril, and becoming thicker 

 as it subsides in the upper lip. There is a median longitudinal 

 depression between these arched flaps ; but their prominence brings 

 them into view in the profile of the face. The point of median 

 confluence of the alse projects a little beyond the fore part of the 

 'septum narium.' The resemblance to the lowest form of the negro 

 nose is much closer in the Gorilla than in the Chimpanzee. The 

 mouth is wide, the lips large and thick, but of uniform thickness, 

 the upper one terminating by a straight, almost as if incised, margin ; 

 but being relatively shorter than in the Chimpanzee. The dark 

 pigment is continued from the base of the lip to this margin, and 

 no part of the red inner lining would be visible when the lips were 

 naturally closed : a little of this lining, which forms what is com- 

 monly understood by 'lip ' in man, might be shown by the under lip 

 of the Gorilla, but it is obscured by added pigment, as in most negro 

 races. The chin is short and receding, but the whole face is promi- 

 nent. The circumference of a front view of the head presents an 

 oval with the great end downward and the upper end very narrow, 

 owing to the parietal ridge, in the old male. The superorbital or 

 cranial part is confined to the upper fourth in this view, and the 

 bestial aspect of the visage is much increased when the huge promi- 

 nent tusks are exposed by opening the lips. The eyelids have eye- 

 lashes almost as in man ; but the eyebrow is not defined, the hair of 

 the head extending to the supraciliary roll, which is almost devoid of 

 hair. In a direct front view the ears are rather above the level of 

 the eyes : they are as much smaller in proportion to the head, as in 

 the Chimpanzee they are larger, in comparison with man ; but in 

 structure they resemble the human auricle more than does the ear of 

 any other ape. 



The tragus and anti-tragus, the helix and anti-helix, the concha, 

 the fossa of the anti-helix and the lobulus are distinctly defined : the 



