244 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE EXTERNAL CHARACTERS 



pp. 782-804. Entire skeletons of the full-grown Troglodytes Gorilla are now set up in 

 the Museum of the College and in the British Museum. 



All the foregoing specimens were obtained from a part of the west coast of tropical 

 Africa traversed by the rivers " Fernandes Vas," " Danger," and " Gaboon," in lati- 

 tudes 1° to 10° N. and 1° to 1.5° S. 



A corresponding series of illustrations — first crania, then the skeleton, finally an 

 entire specimen of the Troglodytes Gorilla — have successively reached the Museum of 

 the Garden of Plants, Paris, and have afforded materials for interesting and instructive 

 memoirs from the accomplished Professors in that noble establishment for extending 

 and diffusing the science of natural history. 



Prof, de Blainville had caused a lithograph to be prepared of the skeleton of the 

 Gorilla, shortly before his demise. His successor, Prof. Duvernoy, communicated a 

 description of this skeleton to the Academy of Sciences in 1853, which is published, 

 with some interesting particulars of the anatomy of the soft parts, in the ' Archives du 

 Museum d'Histoire Naturelle,' tome vii. (1855). The Memoirs and Observations by 

 the accomplished Professor of Mammalogy and Ornithology, Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, 

 on the Gorilla will be found in the ' Comptes Rendus de I'Academie des Sciences,' 

 January 19, 1852, and subsequent numbers ; in the ' Revue de Zoologie,' No. ii. 18.53 ; 

 the whole being summed up in the part of his excellent ' Description des Mammif^res 

 nouveaux,' &c.,4to, which appeared in vol. x. of the ' Archives du Museum,' 1858. 



The differences in the results of the observations by the American, French, and 

 English authors relate chiefly to the interpretation of the facts observed. Dr. Wyman 

 agrees with me in referring the Gorilla to the same genus as the Chimpanzee, but he 

 differs in regarding the latter as being more nearly allied to the Human kind. Professors 

 I. Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and Duvernoy consider the differences in the osteology, dentition, 

 and external characters of the Gorilla to be of generic importance', and enter it in the 

 Zoological Catalogue as Gorilla Gina, the nomen triviale being taken from ' Weggeena,' 

 • Ngina ' and ' Djina,' as the name of the beast in the Gaboon tongue has been di- 

 versely written by voyagers. The French naturalists also concur with the American 

 in placing the Gorilla below the Chimpanzee in the scale. I propose to discuss these 

 questions at the conclusion of the present paper, and to test the notion current in some 

 works that the long-armed Apes (Hylobates), and not the Orangs or Chimpanzees, 

 are the most anthropoid of Quadrumana. 



The young male Gorilla, here described, was killed by natives in the interior of the 

 Gaboon, and brought down to the port entire : it was at once immersed in a cask of 



' The main discrepancy, in regard to matter of fact, is that the arms of the Gorilla are stated by Isid. Geoffroy 

 to be much longer, whilst I found them to be relatively shorter, than those of the Chimpanzee. 



r de proportions presque hnmaines Genre I. Troglodytes. 



\_ beaucoup plus longs que chez I'homme Genre II. Gorilla." (Isid. Geoff, p. 15.) 



Compare, however, plate 48. vol. i. Trans. Zool. Soc. (Troglodytes niger) with plate 13. vol. v. ib. (TrogloJi/tes 

 Gorilla). 



