The Apes. MAMMALIA. The Gokilla. 



19 



with poisoned arrows." Another early English tra- 

 veller, Jobson, and Pyrard de Laval, a Frenchman, 

 appear to have combined the accounts of the Pongo of 

 Battel with the chimpanzee, as was also done at a 

 much later period (1738) by De la Brosse. The nar- 

 ratives of these writers have already been quoted. 

 (See page 17.) 



This view of the identity of the two African apes 

 was adopted by Buffon, who regarded the pongo as the 

 adult of the animal described by him under the name 

 of the jocko, and at the same time confounded both 

 with the orang-outan of the great Eastern Islands. 

 Later naturalists, whilst admitting the specilic and even 

 generic difference of tlie orang and the chimpanzee, 

 still referred all the accounts of the large African 

 apes to the latter; and it was not until the year 1829 

 that attention was called by Mrs. Bowdich to the 

 reported existence of a second species of ape on the 

 West African coast. At the close of a paper on tlie 

 habits of the Diana monkey, published in Loudon's 

 ]\far/a::ine of Natural Ilislori/, that talented lady refers 

 briefly to the accounts which she had hoard of the 

 existence of an animal named Enge'-ena in the coun- 

 tries to the north of the Gaboon river. She says : — 

 " The natives describe it as the largest of all monkeys, 

 but of a breadth more tremendous than its height; thuy 

 declare that one blow of its paw would fell a man to 

 the earth. Both males and females are very much 

 attached to their young, and the latter carry them 

 about after death until they drop from their arms. 

 They are fond of imitating men ; walk upright ; and 

 having seen the natives collect ivory, if they tind a 

 tusk, they carry it on their shoulders till they sink with 

 fiitigue." Although some of these statements are 

 doubtless fobulous, others have been fully confirmed by 

 recent authorities, and it is remarkable tliat tliis refer- 

 ence to the gorilla should have hitherto escaped the 

 attention of naturalists. It was only in 1847 that cer- 

 tain evidence of the occurrence of a second species of 

 African ape was obtained. In April of that year. Dr. 

 Savage, an American missionary, on paying a visit to 

 one of his confreres, Dr. Wilson, stationed on the 

 Gaboon river (situated almost exactly under the equa- 

 tor), obtained several skulls of individuals, of both 

 sexes and of diflerent ages, together with some other 

 portions of the skeleton of a large ape, which appeared 

 to him to differ both from the orang and from the 

 chimpanzee. On bis return to America, Dr. Savage, 

 with the aid of Dr. Wyman, drew np a description of 

 these bones, which was published in 1840 in tho Boston 

 Journal of Natural History; he called the species 

 Troglodgics Gorilla, conceiving that it was identical 

 with the Gorilloi of Hanno. In the following year. 

 Professor Owen, who had received sketches of the 

 skulls from Dr. Savage, and had subsequently obtained 

 some specimens by the aid of Mr. Stutchbury of Bristol, 

 described the species under the name of Troglodytes 

 Savagei; and in 1849 an adult male specimen, pre- 

 served in spirits, was brought to Paris by Dr. Fran- 

 quet; a French naval surgeon. A skeleton was subse- 

 quently procured for the British Museum, where it has 

 now been for some years ; and within the last few 

 months a fine male, nearly adult, and preserved in 



spirits, was also obtained, and by this the title of tho 

 animal to rank as a distinct species has been finally 

 established. 



This specimen, which is about five feet in height 

 when placed in an erect position, has the face and the 

 palms of the hands and feet naked and black. The 

 head and neck are thickly covered with brownish 

 grizzled hair of moderate length, which docs not hang 

 down at the sides of the face so as to form whiskers, 

 as in the chimpanzee. The ears, also, are much 

 smaller than in the latter species; they are placed 

 very high and far back on the sides of the head. The 

 hair of tlie shoulders and upper part of the arms is 

 grizzled ; that of the back and loins has a sooty tinge. 

 The fore-arms are covered with stifl", black hair, directed 

 up towards the elbow as in tlie chimpanzee. The hair 

 on the chest is very scanty; but the belly is more 

 tliickly clothed, and the hair of this part is reddish- 

 brown, and exceedingly coarse and harsh, having a 

 withered appearance. One of the most remarkable 

 characters of the species, which is now commonly 

 known as the Gorilla, is that the digits of both pairs 

 of extremities are united together much further than 

 in the chimpanzee, whose hands nearly resemble those 

 of tlie human species; in the new species, on the con- 

 trary, the fingers of the hands are united nearly as far 

 as the ends of the first phalanges, whilst in the hinder 

 hands the union even goes beyond these, leaving only 

 four little stumpy fingers free. The thumb of tho 

 anterior hands is comparatively small; but that of tlie 

 hinder pair is of enormous size and power, and the 

 whole foot forms a grasping apparatus of the most 

 tremendous character. From the callous marks upon 

 the knuckles it is evident that the Gorilla, when on 

 the ground, walks upon all-fours, and that he does 

 not apply the whole lower surface of the foot to the 

 ground; in fact the digits of the hinder hands appear 

 to be bent naturally in such a way as to render this 

 impossible. 



The inspection of the specimen above described, 

 which has been most admirably prepared, in spite of 

 almost insuperable diflSculties, by Mr. Bartlett, is quite 

 sufficient to justify aU the accounts given by travellers 

 of the fearful powers of the gorilla. Although not 

 fully mature, as is shown by the state of its dentition, 

 the vast bulk of its body, far exceeding that of even 

 the most powerful men, its long arras, and enormously 

 large hands and feet, produce an impression of almost 

 irresistible strength; and when we consider that besides 

 this enormous grasping power — to attempt to escape 

 from which would be utterly hopeless — the adult male 

 is furnished with canine teeth as large as those of a 

 carnivorous beast, set in immensely powerful jaws, of 

 which the lower one, as evidenced by the great deve- 

 lopment of the crests upon the skull, is moved by 

 temporal muscles of enormous bulk; we can easily 

 imagine that such a creature must be one of the most 

 terrible antagonists that a man could well meet with, 

 and cease to wonder that the Negro elephant-hunters 

 should dread him even more than the lion. 



Whether the gorilla really attains the immense size 

 of six or seven feet attributed to him by some travellers, 

 is still rather doubtful. The specimen in the Paris 



