28o APES AND MONKEYS 



and one that other plants refuse. Moisture and heat alone 

 will not account for it. We have another striking instance 

 in the eucalyptus, which lives upon the poison of the air 

 around it. There are many other such cases in vegetable 



life ; and while the animal is a higher organism than the 

 plant, there are certain laws of life that obtain in both 

 kingdoms and involve the same principles. 



Between the case of the gorilla and that of the plant 

 there is some analogy. It may not be the same element 

 that sustains them both, but it is possible that the very 

 microbes which germinate disease and prove fatal to man 

 sustain the life of the ape in the prime of health. The 

 poison which destroys life in man preserves it in the 

 ape. 



The chimpanzee is distributed over a much greater 

 range than the gorilla and is capable of undergoing a 

 much greater degree of change in food and temperature. 

 The history of these apes in captivity shows that in that 

 state the chimpanzee lives much the longer and requires 

 much less care. From my own observation I assert that 

 all these apes can undergo a greater range of temperature 

 than of humidity. The latter appears to be one of the 

 essential things to the life of a gorilla. One fatal mis- 

 take made in treating him is furnishing him with a dry, 

 warm atmosphere and depriving him of the poison con- 

 tained in the malarious air in which he naturally spends 

 his life. Both of these apes need humidity. In a dry air 

 the chimpanzee will live longer than the gorilla, but 

 neither of them can long survive it ; and it would appear 

 that a salt atmosphere is best for the gorilla. 



