THREE GREAT APES. 



I. 

 THE GORILLA. 



BY WILLIAM T. IIORNADAY. 



Most zoologists throw all races of men, 

 apes, baboons, monkeys and lemurs into a 

 single order of the mammalia, and call 

 them Primates. Like thousands of other 

 matters in classification, it is merely a ques- 

 tion of individual preference, concerning 

 which life is too short and too busy to dis- 

 pute. One thing, however, is certain: The 

 fence that marks the boundary between man 

 and the higher apes is neither so high nor 

 so strong as that between the apes and the 

 baboons. 



What I mean by this is that, excepting 

 spoken language, the brightest of the apes 

 are almost as intelligent, and quite as hand- 

 some, as the lowest races of men. The re- 

 spective languages of the Veddahs of Cey- 

 lon, the Fuegians of Terra del Fuego, and 

 the native Australians, each contain hardly 

 more than 200 words. The Veddahs do 

 not comprehend the meaning of " day- 

 after-to-morrow," and cannot count be- 

 yond ten. Sally, the famous " bald chim- 

 panzee " of the London Zoo, could count 

 up to five, just as accurately as any person 

 living. Joe, the wonderful orang utan 

 owned by the Edwards Brothers, under- 

 stands, with perfect clearness, the mean- 

 ing of the words involved in about 50 dif- 

 ferent commands. 



It is a great pity that the three highest 

 apes — gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang utan 

 —are not sufficiently robust and long-lived 

 in the temperate zone that they can be seen 

 alive and studied by everybody. In spite 

 of all that can be printed concerning them, 

 interest in them never flags for a moment. 

 It is because they are " so much like 

 folks! " In a zoological garden, and with 

 the best of care, a chimpanzee will some- 

 times live 6 years, or even 8; but that is 

 about the limit. The more cheerful dis- 

 position and lively habits of the chimpan- 

 zee enables him to outlive the more lym- 

 phatic orang utan, and the sullen and mo- 

 rose gorilla. 



During the last two years I have been 

 greatly interested in the work of two ape- 

 fanciers, the Edwards Brothers, who for 

 several years have wholly devoted them- 

 selves to the care, training and exhibition of 

 anthropoid apes. They began on the Pa- 

 cific Coast, with " Joe," the educated orang 

 utan, whose fame has now traversed the 

 width of the continent, and quite surpasses 

 that of Crowley, the chimpanzee who once 

 held court in the New York Menagerie. 



Until the advent of Joe, the superiority 



of the intelligence of the chimpanzee was 

 accepted as a fact not to be disputed. Be- 

 cause of the more man-like proportions of 

 its arms and legs, hands and feet, the go- 

 rilla is accorded the place in nature next to 

 man himself. In spite of this, however, it 

 happens to be true that the brain of the 

 chimpanzee resembles that of man far more 

 closely than does the brain of the gorilla; 

 and in native intelligence and teachability — 

 if I may coin the word — the chimpanzee 

 and orang utan both are far in advance of 

 the low-browed and brutal gorilla. 



GORILLA. 



Now at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard 



University. 



In captivity, the gorilla has ever been 

 so sullen, morose and intractable that no 

 specimen ever taken has lived longer than 

 a few months: and so far as I can learn, 

 only three have ever reached Europe alive. 

 Until the spring of 1897, not a specimen 

 had been landed in America. Many a 



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