HABITS OF ATTACK 237 



sign of tearing or scratching his opponent. In these at- 

 tacks he made no sound. I do not say that other gorillas 

 never scream or tear their victims, but I take it that the 

 habits of the young are much, if not quite, the same as 

 those of their elders ; and from a study of this specimen I 

 am forced to modify many opinions imbibed from reading 

 or from pictures and museum specimens which I have 

 seen. Many of them represent the gorilla in absurd and 

 sometimes impossible attitudes. They certainly do not 

 represent him as I have seen him in his native wilds. I 

 had a young female gorilla as a subject for study for a 

 short time. Her mode of attack was about the same as 

 that just described, but she was too large to risk very far 

 in such experiments. 



When the chimpanzee attacks, — so far as I have seen 

 among my own specimens, — he approaches his enemy 

 and strikes with both hands, one slightly in advance of 

 the other. After striking a few blows he grasps his oppo- 

 nent and uses his teeth. Then, shoving him away, he 

 again uses the hands. Usually, on beginning the attack, 

 he accompanies the assault with a loud, piercing scream. 

 Neither he nor the gorilla closes the hand to strike or 

 uses any weapon except the hands and the teeth. 



I have read and heard descriptions of the sounds made 

 by gorillas, but nothing ever conveyed to my mind an ade- 

 quate idea of their real nature until I heard them myself 

 within about a hundred feet of my cage in the dead of 

 night. By some it has been called roaring, and by others 

 howling ; but it is neither a roar nor a howl. They utter a 

 peculiar combination of sounds, beginning in a low, smooth 



