BLACK ANTHROPOID APES. 



33 



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whole of the interior of the Dark Continent is 

 occupied by large apes of this description. 

 Whether a third species, the chego, must be 

 admitted or not is still doubtful. The 

 individual differences among these apes are 

 often very considerable, and hybrids are cer- 

 tainly not impossible, in fact according to the 

 accounts of hunters are even frequent. 



It is a very difficult matter to obtain reliable 

 information concerning the distribution, spe- 

 cific characters, habits, and mode of life of 

 these remarkable apes, which unquestionably 

 approach nearest to man in their organization. 

 If even white hunters are notorious for their 

 magniloquent exaggerations, and the hunting 

 tales of Europe are held in light esteem as 

 regards the matter of truth, this is much more 

 the case with negroes and many travellers. 

 Competent trustworthy observers have made 

 the acquaintance of these animals only in the 

 young state, and in addition to that only in 

 captivity. All the anthropoid apes brought 

 to Europe have died in childhood. In no 

 case can we be sure that the creature had 

 attained the eighth year of its age. Like the 

 bodily structure so also must the qualities of 

 the animals alter considerably in the adult; 

 but of the adults we know nothing but the 

 dead bodies, together with a number of stories 

 distorted by all sorts of fables. In fact there 

 is only a single white man who has boasted 

 of having himself killed an ape of this kind, 

 and he has been convicted of so much exag- 

 geration and indulgence in the fabulous that 

 his whole narrative has come to be looked 

 upon as very improbable. 



In the full-page illustration (Plate I.) the 

 Chimpanzee ( Troglodytes niger) is represented 

 in a pleasant homely family group. The 

 papa clings with his right hand and left foot 

 to shoots from a dependent branch, the 

 mamma sits on the outlook with her little 

 one on her lap. Papa is quenching his thirst, 

 and in doing so rests upon his left hand, 

 which is bent into the position which the habit 

 of walking on all-fours has caused the creature 



to adopt. The bristly hair of the head, long 

 behind, and the short white beard leave the 

 characteristic features of the old male, the very 

 prominent orbits in which the eyes are deeply 

 sunk, and the longitudinal crest on the skull 

 (the sagittal crest), plainly recognizable; traits 

 which in the female and the young are not 

 well developed. The large ears spread far 

 out from the head; the nose is broad and 

 flattened, the lower part of the face pro- 

 jecting and muzzle-like. The large lower 

 lip is specially characteristic in the chim- 

 panzee, who uses it as a pouch, while either 

 alone or in conjunction with the upper lip 

 it bears a most important part in the play 

 of feature with which the creature expresses 

 its feelings. The naked parts of the face 

 along with the ears are of a dirty flesh-colour 

 inclining to brown, the region of the eyes and 

 the bridge of the nose almost black, the edges 

 of the lips flesh-coloured, the naked hands 

 and feet of a rather dirty- looking black, the 

 long thin fur, which on the back of the head 

 is developed into a kind of tuft, and on the 

 sides of the face forms bristly whiskers, quite 

 black. On the fore-arms the hair, as in all 

 anthropoid apes, is directed towards the elbow ; 

 the tufts of white hair on the buttocks are 

 not seen in our drawing. Hands and feet are 

 quite human in their character; only on the 

 hands the thumb is weaker, while the great 

 toe is stronger than in man, and the latter 

 lies apart from the rest of the toes, causing the 

 foot to be relatively broader than the human 

 foot in front. The female, and still more the 

 young animal, are distinguished from the 

 adult male by the rounder form of the head, 

 which more resembles that of man in shape, 

 but even in the infant chimpanzee the muzzle 

 projects much further than in the lowest 

 human races. Old males of the chimpanzee 

 attain a height of nearly five feet, but com- 

 pared with man have a greater breadth across 

 the shoulders and more powerfully developed 

 muscles in the long fore-arms, which, when 

 the creature stands upright, nearly reach the 



