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Reptile Department have very generously 
stocked all of the Park’s lakes and ponds with 
frogs and tadpoles. There is now a frequent 
croaking of green frogs in the marsh garden, 
and a frequent and hearty bull-frog chorus at 
several points, particularly noticeable in the 
Heart-Shaped Pond immediately south of the 
Zebra House. 
New Cage-Work.—A great amount of repair 
work has been accomplished the past spring and 
the present summer. One of the major jobs 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
was the dismantling, repairing, reconstructing 
and painting of the outside cages of the Lion 
House, with the construction of an entirely new 
system of permanent cage gutters of reinforced 
cement. The Burrowing Rodents’ cages are 
now dismantled, and next year will be rebuilt 
along new lines, affording greater strength, more 
attractive appearance, and more room for the 
animals. The entire reconstruction of the out- 
side cages of the Small Mammal House is well 
under way, and will be completed this year. 
A GORILLA’S 
LIFE IN 
CIVILIZATION 
By Atyse CunNINGHAM 
T was with the feelings of greatest misgiving 
that I settled down to the task of bringing 
up, or at least helping to bring up, a young 
gorilla, when my nephew, Major Rupert Penny 
of the Royal Air Force, in November, 1918, 
bought “Johnny Gorilla,’ which name we pre- 
ferred to the “John Daniel” that was given 
him when he first came to England in July, 
1918. Inasmuch as the British Government 
did not permit any wild animals to be brought 
into England at that time, John was brought in 
with a lot of monkeys which then were required 
by the government for experimental purposes. 
We heard that a captain of a French ship 
brought John to Havre, where he was bought 
by an animal dealer and shipped to England 
with the monkeys. Soon afterward he was sold 
to a departmental store in London as a Christ- 
mas attraction, and it was there that we first 
saw him, about October or November, 1918. 
Disliking anything in the shape of a monkey 
or ape, I did not take a fancy to the gorilla, 
but I thought him amusing when I saw him in 
his cage, clapping his hands or chest, and doing 
various little tricks off his own bat, much to the 
amusement of the crowds who saw him daily. 
On the other hand Major Penny had always 
been very much interested in primates, and he 
bought the gorilla with the idea of seeing how 
much mentality could be developed in the high- 
est of the anthropoidal apes. 
John Gorilla was captured when very young, 
on the seaboard of the French Gaboon country, 
and came to England when he was rather under 
three years old. He continued to amuse people 
in the zoo section of the store until near Christ- 
mas time, when he acquired influenza, or at least 
a severe cold—most probably caught from “the 
public.” As he was in a very stuffy atmosphere 
throughout the day, in close proximity to people, 
and he was being kept night and day in an 
amazing temperature of from 80 to 85 degrees, 
it was a case of a complete change or an early 
death. 
John came to live with us at 15 Sloane Street, 
London, at the end of December, 1918. He was 
in a “rickety” condition and he weighed only 
thirty-two pounds. He stood erect with diffi- 
culty, as a photograph taken at that time plain- 
ly shows. When he left us in March, 1921, he 
weighed 112 pounds and his measurements were 
as follows: Height, standing naturally, 3 feet 
414 inches; Circumference of head, 1914 
inches; Neck, 1714 inches; Chest, 34 inches; 
Length of upper arm, to elbow, 12 inches; 
Forearm to wrist, 1014 inches; Around upper 
arm, 10 inches; Around wrist, 844 inches; Top 
of head to seat, 28 inches; Hip to knee, 11 
inches; Knee to heel, 1144 inches; Around 
ankle, 9 inches; Length of foot, 9 inches. 
We converted a small room into a cage for 
him, separated from another room by bars. so 
that he could see and be near to people all day. 
The cage was heated by an electric radiator. 
One of the windows of the cage we had taken 
out, and the space was covered with several 
thicknesses of muslin, to allow fresh air to be 
filtered through. At once we dropped the high 
temperature he had been having down to 65 
degrees. His cold got better at once. 
We soon found it was impossible to leave him 
alone at night, because he shrieked every night, 
and nearly all night, from loneliness and fear! 
This we found he had done in the store before 
coming to us. He always began to cry directly 
he saw the assistants putting things away for 
the night. We found that this loneliness at 
night was trying on his health and appetite, 
