32 
NATURAL ITT STORY. 
readies from the calf to the back heel-bone (os caleis) gives a slender appearance to the lower limb of 
man, but there is no myth about a Gorilla having been held by that slim spot and dipped in Styx, to be 
for ever invulnerable elsewhere. This tendon (tendo Achillis) so characteristic of man, is supplied 
with muscular fibres to close to its insertion into the heel-bone in the Gorilla, which thus gains in 
strength what it loses in elegance. A snapping of the tendon would be indeed a grave matter in the 
huge Ape, and Nature has thus provided against this accident. 
The thick ankles of the Gorilla are rather exaggerated by the hair which covers them, and 
it is found over the whole of the upper surface of the foot to the clefts of the toes. The sole is not 
thus covered, and its bare state enables grasping to be performed with ease, while the absence of hair 
assists the delicacy of the sense of touch. Another cause of the ugly appearance of the foot is the 
backward projection of the heel, and the hand-like look is of course given by the great toe-thumb, 
which projects from the side of the foot at an angle of 60 degrees at least. The sole is narrow behind, 
and expands to where the great toe-thumb projects, so as to become very wide close to the clefts 
between the other toes. It is marked with lines or indentations, and there is a kind of pad beneath 
the ball of the great toe-thumb. The Gorilla seizes objects and grasps boughs with its feet, the great 
toe-thumb being exceedingly movable to and fro as well as across the sole of the foot. Hence the 
hand-like appearance of the foot and the thumb-like appendage of the great toe. Yet it is a foot, 
and the movable toe is not really a thumb. 
HUNTING THE GORILLA. 
