14 



KNOWLEDGE 



[January 1, 1894. 



Mr. Lydekkcr's description of the larger anthropoid apes 

 will be found extremely interesting. He reminds us that 

 a full-grown male gorilla, if standing in a perfectly upright 

 position, will generally measure rather more than six feet 

 in height ; and since his body is much more bulky, and his 

 limbs are longer than those of man, he is considerably 

 the lai-gest representative of the Primates. Gorillas 

 habitually live in small families, having young ones of 

 various ages with them. They live a wandering life and 

 do not frequent the same sleeping-place for more than 

 three or four consecutive nights, travelling considerable 

 distances through the dense forests in search of fresh 

 supplies of suitable food. 



Although in appearance male gorillas are somewhat 

 unwieldy creatures, yet they are most active and inde- 

 fatigable climbers, and are said to ascend to the very tops 

 of the forest trees, where they pass from tree to tree 

 almost as readily as the far lighter spider-monl:eys of 

 Brazil. They are also capable of taking leaps from great 

 heights to the ground without damage to themselves. Herr 

 von Koppeufels says that he saw an adult spring from a 

 tree at a heiji:ht of some thirty or forty feet, and on 

 alighting disappear into the scrub. 



Of all the large man-like apes, those which on the whole 

 make the nearest approach in bodily structure to man are the 

 chimpanzees of western and central equatorial Africa. In the 

 autumn of 188ri a young chimpanzee, called " Sally," was 

 purchased by the Zoological 

 Society of London. Mr. Bartlett, 

 the superintendent of the society's 

 gardens, soon recognized that she 

 was very different from the true 

 or common chimpanzee, and he 

 considered that the animal was 

 probably one of the black-faced 

 chimpanzees, termed by Du 

 Chaillu "bald chimpanzees." 

 The ordinary chimpanzee has a 

 white or pale flesh-coloured face, 

 hands, and feet, and isavegetable 

 feeder, but " Sally" showed a dis- 

 position to live upon animal food. 

 Mr. Bartlett says that soon after 

 her arrival he found that she 

 would kill and eat small birds ; 

 seizing them by the neck, she 

 would bite off the head and eat 

 the bird — skin, feathers and all. 

 For some mouths she killed and 

 ate a small pigeon every n)ght, 

 but after a time her keepers 

 supplied her with cooked mutton 

 and beef tea, upon which she did 

 very well. She was an expert 

 rat-catcher, and caught and killed 

 many rats that entered her cage 

 during the night. 



Mr. Bartlett soon recognized 

 that her intelligence was far above 

 that of the ordinary chimpanzee ; 

 she quickly recognized those who 

 had once made her acquaint- 

 ance, and paid marked attention 

 to men of colour by uttering 

 a loud cry — Inni, bun, Inin. 

 Dr. J. G. Romanes made her 

 acquaintance and endeavoured 

 to test her mental powers. His 

 account of her was written in 



1889, after she had been nearly six years in the Zoological 

 Gardens. He compared the intelligence of " Sally " to 

 that of a child a few months before emerging from the 

 period of infancy, and considered that it was far higher 

 than that of any other mammal, with the exception of man. 

 In spite, however, of this relatively high degree of 

 intelligence, the creature's power of making vocal replies 

 to her keepers, or those with whom she was brought into 

 contact, were of the most limited kind. Such replies were 

 restricted to three peculiar grunting noises. One of 

 these indicated assent or affirmation ; another, of very 

 similar intonation, denoted refusal or distrust ; while the 

 third, of totally different intonation, was used to express 

 thanks or recognition of favours. In disposition, says 

 Dr. Romanes, "Sally" was like many of her sex, apt 

 to be capricious and uncertain, although on the whole 

 she was good-humoured and fond of her keepers, with 

 whom she was never tired of a kind of bantering play, 

 which was kept up at intervals almost continually. By 

 singing in a peculiar kind of monotone in imitation of her 

 own utterances, her keepers were usually able to induce 

 her to go through a series of remarkable actions, the 

 meanings of which were not very apparent. First she 

 would shoot out her lips into a tubular form, uttering at 

 the same time a weird kind of howling note, interrupted at 

 regular intervals. The pauses would, however, gradually 

 become shorter and shorter, while the sing-song became 



ALLY," THi; JJlACK-FaC'KD C'HIStrANZEE. 



