52 Dr, L, J. Sanford on the Gorilla. 
possession, accidentally, of the skull and some other portions 
of the skeleton of a species of ape which he was convince 
was unknown to zoologists. These remains he forwarded to the 
Society of Natural History at Boston, in whose proceedings 
they were subsequently described by Dr. Savage and Professor 
: Jeffries Wyman. The new animal was found to belong to the 
genus Troglodytes, and these gentlemen proposed as his distin- 
guishing cognomen, gorilla. Whether they thus named him on 
the supposition that he was the same species as seen by Hanno, 
the old Carthaginian navigator, we are not informed. : 
e term Troglodytes (from 19éy4y, a cavern, and diw, to In- 
habit,) was first applied to the apes by Linnzeus, we believe, and 
it now includes four varieties, viz: e chimpanzee (TZroglodytes 
niger), the kooloo-kamba* (Troglodytes kooloo-kamba), the nshiego- 
mbouvé (Troglodytes calvus) and the gorilla (Zroglodytes gorilla). 
he chimpanzee was originally known as the Homo sylvestris or 
Pigmy, which name was given by Tyson in 1699. Linneus calls 
it, in his “Systema Nature,” the Homo-Troglodytes. It became 
EE rrr are 
MSIE ALi= SOME 
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talwieh 
a7 
more generally known, however, as the Simia Troglodytes, from — 
Blumenbach. The name it now bears, Troglodytes niger, was gIV- 
en in 1812, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire of Paris.—It is proper to add 
here, that this naturalist makes a new genus for the gorill 
which he has named Gorilla, and has called the only species of 
the genus thus named zgina. All the above species inhabit 
equatorial Africa. Besides them, six other varieties of tail-less 
apes are known to naturalists, viz; two species of the orang: 
cetan (Simra Satyrus) found in Borneo an ; and four 
species of the gibbon (Hylobates), including the siamang, which 
are distributed through Java, Borneo, Sumatra, Malacca and 
lam. 
Since 1847, at which time the gorilla was fairly introduced to 
the world, our knowledge of him has been gradually increasing. 
In 18538, Prof. Owen, of London, received from the Gaboon, 4 
gorilla’s carcass, in a cask of spirit,—it was in so imperfect a 
state of preservation however, that but little more than its skel- 
gorilla skeletons and stuffed carcasses, which he had obtained 
during his four years exploration tour in equatorial Africa. Mr. 
DuChaillu claims to be the first white man who has seen the go- 
Tilla and studied its habits, in its native jungles; the facts are 
utter ot the sound which it utters, and Kamba, ab ‘® native word signifying . 
mee * 6 
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