H4 



REPORT 1861. 



On the Height of the Gorilla: a Letter from Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. 

 Much difference occurs in the statements of travellerj and others with reference 

 to the height of the great African ape. Bowdich, the first traveller by whom it 

 was mentioned, under the name of the Lu/cha, states it, on the authority of the 

 natives of the Claboon, to he generally 5 feet high ; bat in some recent notices it 

 has been asserted to reach the height of 6 feet 2 inches ; and the specimen exhibited 

 at the meeting of German naturalists at Vienna is said, on good authority, to have 

 measured more than 6 feet in height. The measurement of a stuffed skin without 

 bones is necessarily delusive, depending as it does, first, on the mode in which the 

 skin has been originally prepared, and, secondly, on the extent to which the artist 

 may be disposed to stretch it. Such measurements are not to be relied on unless 

 they are in accordance with those of the bony skeleton ; and it therefore occun-ed 

 to me that it would be desirable to measure the long bones of the limbs of the dif- 

 ferent skeletons existing in the British Museum, the osseous structure giving the 

 only certain dimensions on which reliance can be placed. The skeletons in the 

 British Museinn are six in number, viz. — 1. A skeleton, obtained from Paris by 

 Prof Owen, and moimted in the best French manner. 2, 3, 4. Skeletons of male, 

 female and young, purchased fromM. Du Chaillu. 5. A skeleton of a male, purchased 

 at Bristol, of which we have also the stuffed skin. 6. An imperfect skeleton, pur- 

 chased from M. Parzudaki, of Paris. The measurements of the several bones of 

 each of these skeletons are given in the following Table : — 



They were taken by Mr. Gerrai-d Avith a tape measuiing inches and quarters of inches 

 only, but are quite sufficient for a comparison between the specimens themselves, 

 and as affording materials for determining the actual height of the animal. As the 

 largest of these (viz. the Paris specimen, photographed for the Trustees of the 

 British Museum by Mr. Fen ton) stands 5 feet 2 inches in height, we are justified 

 in concluding that to be in all probability the extreme natural height of the fidl- 

 grown animal. 



A letter was read from Dr. Gray, of the British Museum (dated Sept. G, 1861), to 

 Professor Babington, in reference to Professor Owen's paper on the Gorilla, in which 

 it was stated that the slrin of the great Gorilla, now in the British Museum, exhibits 

 two opposite wounds, the smaller in front of the left side of the chest, the larger 

 close to the lower part of the right blade bone. Two of the ribs in the skeleton of 

 this animal are broken on the right side, near where the charge has passed through 

 the skin in its com-se outwards. Dr. Gray and other naturalists having examined the 

 specimen, found two holes in the nape of the neck (now filled with putty) ; there are 

 also two large holes in the thin portion of the hinder part of the skull belonging to 

 the same skin which pass through the bone, and are quite sufficient to have caused 

 death. In neither sldn nor skeleton is there any evidence of a gun-shot entering on 

 the left side of the chest ; and the fracture of three (not of two) ribs on the right 



