20 



QCADRUMASTA. MAMMALIA. SlMIAD.E. 



Museum measured about five feet four inches in total 

 height; and a missionary named Walker is said to have 

 obtained one measuring five feet eight inches, but this is 

 the largest on record. Considering the structure of the 

 animal, however, we can easily believe Battel's state- 

 ment that ten men would be unable to overcome a 

 single adult even of this size ; and the great dread 

 which the natives entertain for it, coupled with the 

 difficulty of transplanting such a huge carcass through 

 its native forests to any place frequented by Europeans, 

 is a sufficient explanation of our long ignorance even 

 of the existence of the gorilla. 



From the statements of Dr. Savage and others, it 

 appears that the gorilla inhabits the district through 

 which flow the Gaboon and Danger rivers. Its dwell- 

 ing is in the interior of the country, whilst the chim- 

 panzee is met with on the coast. The tribe of Negroes 

 inhabiting this district is called Mpongwe, whence, 

 according to Dr. Wilson, is derived the name of Pongo, 

 applied to the species by Battel the native name of 

 the animal being Enge-ena. 



In their native forests the gorillas live in troops, 

 hich, however, are not so numerous as those of the 

 chimpanzees, and consist principally of females ; and 

 all the natives who furnished Dr. Savage with informa- 

 tion upon their habits, agreed in stating that there is 

 only one adult male to each troop, and that as the 

 young males grow up, they engage in contests for the 

 superiority, when the strongest, by killing or driving 

 off all the others, establishes himself as the chief of the 

 band. The adult male, according to the statements of 

 the Negroes, never meets a man in the woods without 

 attacking him. When first seen, he sets up a fearful 

 howling, the sound of which has been compared to 

 the syllables Jcha-ah! kha-dh! opens his mouth to 

 exhibit his terrible teeth, and contracts the skin of his 

 face, so as to acquire an appearance of incredible fero- 

 city. The females and the young disappear with the 

 first sound of battle, and the male then advances upon 

 his enemy in a state of perfect fury, repeating his cries 

 at every step. Of course the hunter's only chance under 

 such circumstances is to kill his assailant with a single 

 shot; and as this is not always an easy matter, the 

 Negroes are said to recommend the adoption of a course 

 which certainly requires more coolness than falls to 

 the lot of most men. The best plan of making sure of 

 a gorilla, according to this account, is to allow him to 

 approach until he grasps the barrel of the gun, and 

 then to fire at the moment when, as his custom is, he 

 is about to bite the muzzle. If the piece miss fire, the 

 gorilla is said to crush the barrel between his teeth, 

 when, of course, he makes short work with his unfor- 

 tunate antagonist. Hence, as we may suppose, the 

 Negroes are not very anxious to go in pursuit of the 

 gorillas, and only attempt their destruction in self- 

 defence, when they come suddenly upon them in jour- 

 neying through the forest, or in their elephant-hunting 

 expeditions. The destruction of a gorilla is looked 

 upon as a most honourable exploit. Dr. Savage 

 records a case in which a Negro slave, having succeeded 

 in killing an elephant, on his return met with a male 

 gorilla, which, being a good marksman, he shot, and 

 poon afterwards, falling in with a female, killed her also. 



These feats, performed in a single day, were looked 

 upon as almost superhuman ; the fortunate slave was 

 immediately set free, and pronounced the prince of 

 hunters. Captain Wagstaff, who brought the first skulls 

 of the gorilla to England, furnished Professor Owen 

 with information of a somewhat similar nature, and 

 added that when the natives succeed in killing one of 

 these animals, they make a fetish of the skull ; those 

 brought home by him had been used in this way, and 

 still exhibited traces of sacred marks in the form of red 

 and white streaks. Although the male is thus so for- 

 midable an enemy to man, Dr. Savage denies that 

 there is any truth in the stories of their forcing Negresses 

 to accompany them to their retreats in the woods, or 

 attacking the elephants with clubs, narrated both of 

 this and the preceding species by the older writers. 

 These stories, however, are confirmed by a recent 

 French traveller, M. G-autier Laboulaye; but upon 

 what authority does not appear. Their food, as stated 

 by Battel, consists of nuts and fruits ; and, according to 

 Dr. Savage, they are espeeially fond of the acid fruits 

 of some species of Amomum, and of those of the oil 

 palm (Ela'is guineensis], the Papaw (Carica papaya), 

 and the Banana (Musa sapientum). They are also 

 said to be partial to sugar-canes. 



THE OBANG-OTTTAS (Simia Safyrus). Plate 1, 

 fig. 2. 



The remarkable man-like apes of the great Indian 

 islands, appear to have been entirely unknown to the 

 ancients, unless Pliny's mention of Indian satyrs 

 refers to the orang-outan. It is not, indeed, until the 

 middle of the seventeenth century, that we find any 

 notice of these animals in the writings of Europeans. 

 About this period, the Orang-outon is mentioned by 

 Johnston in his " Historia Animalium," but described 

 as brought from Angola. In 1658, however, some 

 genuine observations upon the orang, were published 

 in Holland; their author, Bontius, a Dutch physician 

 residing in Batavia, having seen " several of these 

 satyrs of both sexes" in that country. The English 

 anatomist, Tyson, whose work on the chimpanzee has 

 already been quoted, also refers to the orang-outan, 

 upon the appearance and habits of which he had 

 obtained some details from a French missionary, 

 named Lecomte ; and a little later, Leguat, a French 

 voyager, gave a description of a large ape which he 

 saw in captivity in Java, and which could only have 

 been an orang-outan. The notices of the species then 

 become more frequent in works on Natural History; 

 but the two great authorities of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, Linnaeus and Buffon, both agreed in regarding 

 the great Indian and African apes as belonging to a 

 [ingle species. They were imperfectly distinguished 



iGmelin, who still describes the pongo as a variety 

 of the orang-outan, inhabiting both Java and Guinea. 

 Since the chimpanzee has been clearly recognized as 

 a species distinct from the orang, there has been a 

 tendency to multiply the species of the large Eastern 

 apes; and we find no less than six supposed species 

 described by different authors, principally from pecu- 

 liarities in the structure of the skeleton. It would 

 appear, however, from the recent observations of Mr. 

 A. R. Wallace upon the orangs of Borneo, that some 



