BRUTISHNESS OF THE GORILLA 
should be the only one achieved by the highest of the apes, is 
striking testimony to the wide distance between it and the lowest 
human savage. 
The next of the great apes —the West-African gorillas — 
are the biggest, fiercest, and yet most anthropoid of them all; 
the most repulsive of all beasts, perhaps, because 
so like humanity devoid of every attractive quality 
except mere physical strength. A gorilla is of so massive a 
frame as to weigh more than twice as much as any man of 
similar height. In relative shortness of arms and length of 
legs it stands nearest man, but its brain is no larger than that 
of a four-year-old child. The face is naked and black, very 
wide, with a huge protruding mouth, nostrils broad and flat, 
and the eyes overhung by bony ridges. To a prominent ridge 
on the skull, running from the forehead back to the nape, are 
attached thick masses of temporal and neck muscles. The 
canine teeth are formidable tushes, and the whole face, crowned 
by reddish hair, and set closely above the shaggy, massive 
shoulders, expresses brutal savagery. The coat consists of 
blackish or reddish bristles, with an under fur, and it becomes 
gray with age. The arms reach down to the knee when the 
gorilla stands erect, as it will readily do, for its feet are big and 
have a prominent heel; and, as might be expected of so heavy 
a creature, it spends much time on the ground, and sleeps 
there on beds of weed stalks, etc., or, more often, perhaps, 
makes “nests” in trees for the night. It seems to be less 
timid than the chimpanzee, probably because it has nothing 
to fear but an occasional leopard. 
Until recently only a single species, the original Gorilla 
savagei, was known, and it was believed to be restricted to the 
forested coast hills between the Kamarun and western 
Kongo rivers; but since 1903 other Specimens of Species. 
huge size have been shot in the interior of the French Kongo 
(State), and also near Lake Albert Edward. In La Nature 
15 
Gorilla. 
