4 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE. 



Peninsula, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Cambodia and Hainan, 

 and the Siamang to Java and Sumatra. 



The QoriUa. The gorilla is the largest of the ape family, 

 and sometimes attains to the height of six feet. It is also 

 the fiercest, if not the strongest, of man-shaped animals. It 

 belongs to the genus Troglodytes of which the chimpanzee is 

 the only other species, and it inhabits a somewhat limited 

 range of Equatorial Africa, where it makes for itself nests 

 of sticks and foliage, among the lower branches of trees, 

 and lives upon berries, nuts and fruits. Though apparently 

 a vegetarian the gorilla has enormous physical strength. His 

 arms bear much the same proportion to the size of his body 

 as those of man do relatively, but hLs lower limbs are shorter, 

 and have no calves, the leg growing thicker from the knee 

 downwards. The hands are broad, thick, and of great 

 length of palm, and are remarkable for their strength; the 

 feet, broader than those of man, and more like hands, are 

 very large and of great power. The gorilla uses his hands 

 when walking or running, but as his arms are longer than 

 those of other apes, and his legs shorter he stoops less than 

 they do in moving from place to place. The goriUa herds 

 in small companies, or rather families, one adult male being 

 the husband and father of the band. The females are much 

 smaller than the males. 

 The Ancestors ^^® gorilla, though rediscovered in recent 

 of the years, was apparently known to the ancients. 

 OoiiUa. Hanno, a Carthaginian admiral who flourished 

 some five or six hundred years B.C., once sailed from 

 Carthage -with a fleet of sixty vessels and a company of 

 30,000 persons, under instructions to proceed past the Pillars 

 of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar), with a view to planting 

 colonies on the western coast of Africa. In the course of 

 their travels they discovered several islands inhabited by 

 wild creatures with hairy bodies. "There were," says the 

 ancient navigator, "many more females than males, all equally 



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