38 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



Europe or the long-headed, fair-skinned natives of the North. But 

 amongst these, too, the period of youth is stretching out, and we 

 may fairly say that youth in civilised man lasts for at least twenty 

 years. Exact observations on the lower races of man relating to 

 this point are not very numerous, but there is a general agreement 

 amongst those with knowledge that both males and females of the 

 lower races mature much earlier. Probably it would be fair to set 

 down from twelve to fifteen years as the duration of youth in most 

 of the lower human races. 



The animals that approach man most closely in size and structure 

 are the anthropoid or man -like apes. Gorillas, which live in the 

 tropical forests of West Africa, are larger than human beings. They 

 are much more bulky, and their legs and arms are longer. A full- 

 grown male, if it stood perfectly upright, would be considerably 

 more than six feet in height. Chimpanzees, which live in the same 

 parts of Africa as the gorilla, but also extend much further to the east, 

 have long arms and legs, but are not so large and heavy, and even 

 if fully upright would seldom reach five feet in height. Orang-utans, 

 which are natives of Borneo and Sumatra, have relatively longer 

 legs and arms than the others, but are even less upright. The 

 largest orang is not more than just over five feet in height, but the 

 great bulk of their bodies exceeds that of ordinary human beings 

 and is intermediate between the bulks of the gorilla and chimpanzee. 

 The gibbons, of which there are many species, ranging over a large 

 part of tropical Asia, are much more erect in posture than any of the 

 other anthropoid apes, and their arms and legs are extremely long. 

 Their bodies are slight, and the largest specimen of the largest species 

 probably is not more than four feet in height, and is therefore 

 smaller and lighter than a human being. 



The gorilla, the chimpanzee and the orang carefully avoid the 

 neighbourhood of man, and although gibbons are less shy, their 

 life, passed chiefly in the tall trees of forests, makes careful and 

 prolonged observation difficult. We have therefore no exact 

 knowledge of their breeding habits, or of the duration of their youth 

 in the wild condition. They are notoriously difficult to keep alive 

 in captivity. One gorilla lived for several years in the Zoological 

 Gardens at Frankfurt ; all the great Zoological Gardens have made 

 many attempts, but these apes seldom live for more than a few weeks 

 after their arrival. Orangs were long supposed to be equally delicate, 

 but more recently there has been greater success with them, and at 

 the present time there is alive in the London Zoological Gardens a 



