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prepares for an attack, and always acts on the offensive. 
The cry he utters resembles a grunt more than a growl, and 
is similar to the cry of the Chimpanzee, when irritated, but 
vastly louder. It is said to be audible at a great distance. 
His preparation consists in attending the females and young 
ones, by whom he is usually accompanied, to a little distance. 
He, however, soon returns, with his crest erect and projecting 
forward, his nostrils dilated, and his under-lip thrown down ; 
at the same time uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it 
would seem, to terrify his antagonist. Instantly, unless he is 
disabled by a well-directed shot, he makes an onset, and, 
striking his antagonist with the palm of his hands, or seizing 
him with a grasp from which there is no escape, he dashes 
him upon the ground, and lacerates him with his tusks. 
“He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush 
the barrel between his teeth. . . . . . This animal’s 
savage nature is very well shewn by the implacable despera- 
tion of a young one that was brought here. It was taken 
very young, and kept four months, and many means were 
used to tame it; but it was incorrigible, so that it bit me an 
hour before it died.” 
Mr. Ford discredits the house-building and elephant- 
driving stories, and says that no well-informed natives 
believe them. They are tales told to children. 
I might quote other testimony to a similar effect, but, as 
it appears to me, less carefully weighed and sifted, from the 
letters of MM. Franquet and Gautier Laboullay, appended to 
the memoir of M. I. G. St. Hilaire, which I have already 
cited. 
Bearmg in mind what is known regarding the Orang 
and the Gibbon, the statements of Dr. Savage and Mr. Ford 
do not appear to me to be justly open to criticism on @ priori 
grounds. The Gibbons, as we have seen, readily assume 
the erect posture, but the Gorilla is far better fitted by its 
organization for that attitude than are the Gibbons: if the 
aryngeal pouches of the Gibbons, as is very likely, are 
