Introduction 



River on the west to the Lower Aruwimi on the east. Captain 

 Guy Burrows, about 1900, photographed a gorilla said to have 

 been killed near the Stanley Falls, to the cast of the main 

 Congo. 



The gorillas identified as the beringeri species, identical 

 with the large specimen in the British Museum and with 

 that illustrated so splendidly by Mr. Barns in this book, 

 come from a mountain region ranging from eight to ten 

 thousand feet in elevation. Are they specifically identical 

 with the types killed at Avakubi on the Ituri River and east 

 of the Stanley Falls, where the altitude above sea level cannot 

 have been more than two thousand feet ? That is a question 

 not 3'et determined, just as we are not able to say whether 

 Grenfell's gorilla of the northernmost Congo is distinct as a 

 species, or even as a sub-species, from the Western gorillas of 

 the Sanga River, the Cameroons, Gaboon and Luango. 



The Eastern gorilla illustrated in this book and further 

 represented by the very large specimen in the British Museum, 

 appears to be slightly more "human" in the lessened pro- 

 portionate size of its canine teeth and one or two modifications 

 of the skull, the arrangement of the head hair and prominence 

 of the nose.* (The Neanderthal species of man who existed in 

 central, western and southern Europe from five hundred 

 thousand to one hundred thousand years ago (or even later) 

 had a nose very like an exaggeration of the gorilla type : 

 depressed as regards bridge, but very prominent and bulging 

 over and around the nostrils.) 



The problem of the anthropoid apes in Africa at the 

 present day may be stated thus : — 



* The features and appearance of the Western gorilla of the Gaboon are 

 admirably illustrated in the September Bulletin of the New York Zoological 

 Society, and should be compared with those of the Eastern gorilla in this book. 



XXV 



