260 



RECREA TION. 



GORILLA; IMPORTED BY EDWARDS BROS. 



GORILLA; IMPORTED BY EDWARDS BROS. 



showman has picked out a particularly- 

 large and ugly old babcon — with a tail 18 

 inches long — put him in a cage by himself, 

 and labeled him conspicuously, " Gorilla, 

 or Lion Slayer." 



But every showman knows better than to 

 do so; and whenever any person attempts 

 to pass upon you a gorilla with a tail, tell 

 him it is counterfeit, and make him take it 

 back! 



Early last year, one of the Edwards 

 Brothers went to England in quest of talent 

 for their galaxy of anthropoid stars. At 

 Liverpool, he found in the possession of 

 Mr. Cross, a dealer in live animals, a genu- 

 ine baby gorilla, which had just arrived 

 from the Gaboon country, equatorial West 

 Africa. The price of the little creature was 

 $500, but Mr. Edwards paid it, and on May 

 2 landed in Boston with the first and only 

 living gorilla ever seen in America, up to 

 this time. It was 20 inches in height, 1SV2 

 pounds in weight, and its portrait is repro- 

 duced herewith. 



The sailor who procured it informed Mr. 

 Edwards that its capture was due to an ac- 

 cident by which a tree fell on its mother and 

 killed her. I strongly suspect the mother 

 and her babe were chased by the natives 

 into a tree from which she could not escape, 

 and which was chopped down by her pur- 

 suers, just as happens in Borneo in the 

 capture of many a baby orang utan. 



When first captured, the little gorilla was 

 fed on plantains and boiled rice, but its 

 civilized owners taught it to take milk, dry 

 bread, apples, oranges, figs, bananas, and 

 other things that children like. Although 

 it was a hearty eater, an energetic fighter, 

 and apparently anxious to live to a ripe old 

 age, its span of life proved all too brief. 

 For such a delicate and sensitive animal, its 

 voyage across the Atlantic was made a lit- 

 tle too early in the year. On the way over, 

 it contracted a severe cold, which resulted 

 in its death only five days after its arrival in 

 Boston. But we are not wholly bereft. Its 

 untimely death was an opportunity long 

 awaited by Dr. Burt G. Wilder, of Cornell 

 University, whose special studies are of the 

 brain. To him the mortal remains of little 

 Troglodytes gorilla were promptly con- 

 signed for permanent preservation in the 

 University museum, and of them we will 

 undoubtedly hear much more anon. 



Of the two gorillas that have been exhib- 

 ited in the London Zoo, I had the pleasure 

 of seeing one, in the summer of '96. This 

 was a female, about half grown. She hated 

 visitors, and nearly all day long kept her- 

 self completely covered with the heavy gray 

 blanket with which she was provided. In 

 order to see her, I was obliged to appeal to 

 her keeper, Mr. Mansbridge, a very intelli- 

 gent and obliging man, who has charge of 

 the most valuable collection of apes in all 



