46 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
all : and, therefore, it must be anticipated that the Grecian type will not always prevail. Neverthe- 
less, although the great toe is often the longest, the third toe never is, except there is some decided 
deformity, like double toes. It is, however, the third toe which is the longest in the Ape, just as the 
third finger of the hand is the longest in man ; and hence the Ape’s foot, with its great thumb, is 
in this hand-like. But as has been mentioned before, bone for bone, and almost muscle for muscle, 
the human and Ape’s foot agree, and the hinder extremity of this last is really a foot with a toe-thumb. 
On looking at the head of the Koolo-Kamba, one is struck with the large ears, which are larger than 
those of the Apes already described, and almost as large, but less detached, as those of the Chimpanzee. 
'The skull is globular, and with a low contracted forehead receding behind the brow crests; but 
there are only faint ridges on its sides, although the muscles of the jaw are large, and they come from 
the sides of the skull. The head is very hairy, and the face, which is very prognathous ( yvaGos , jaw 
or mouth), or projecting in front, is black in colour. It is rendered very tigerish and ugly by the 
flat nose merging into a wide, thick, projecting upper lip, without any furrow ; and the mouth looks 
like a wide slit, there being no chin, on account of the pouting nature of the great lips 
Like the other Troglodytes the Koolo-Kamba has great air sacs or throat pouches, which are 
hidden amongst the great muscles of the neck, and enter the organ of voice, or the larynx, between the 
upper and lower structures for the production of vocal sound. Their size and general nature may be 
satisfactorily compared with those of the Gorilla, in page 22. 
Having something of a voice, this Ape has a better-formed palate than the others, and its tongue 
has not such a jumble of papilla? or little needle points on it as they have, for the larger cup-shaped 
ones are arranged at the back in the shape of the letter Y. The last molar tooth of the lower jaw has 
five cusps. 
A great eater of vegetable food, it requires a great stomach, and this has the two openings very 
close together, that is to say, the one for the passage of food in, and the other for the passage of food 
out, into the small gut. There is, as in all vegetarians by nature, a large great intestine, enormous 
in fact, and this ends, as in man, in a blind gut with an appendix. The cause of all this is that 
vegetable food does not contain much available nourishment, and large portions of it must come in 
contact with the mucuous or absorbing membrane of the stomach and bowels, in order that a proper 
quantity of nutritious matter may be absorbed, and be made into blood. The contrary is the case in 
flesh-eating animals, whose food contains a great percentage of nourishment ; for in them the stomach 
and intestines are small, the surface required not being great, and nature is wonderfully economical. 
THE SOSO. 
This animal, both as regards its name, description, and habits, we owe to Livingstone ; and the 
stories which he heard of it from the natives, in the strange country to the west of the great lake 
Tanganyika, must have wiled away many a weary hour during his ill-health and gradual loss of energy. 
The first notice of it is curious enough, and occurs in his last journals. They were in want of 
rain, and he writes : “A Soko, alive, was believed to be a good charm for rain, so one was caught; and 
the captor had the ends of two fingers and toes bitten off. Hie Soko, or Gorilla, always tries to bite 
off these parts, and has been known to overpower a young man, and leave him without the ends of 
fingers and toes. I saw the nest of one; it was a poor contrivance — no more architectural skill shown 
than in the nest of our cushet dove.” Here the consideration of this creature might have ended, for 
Livingstone terms it a Gorilla, but this name, like that of Pongo, is evidently given to all great African 
Apes with bad characters, and moreover, as will be noticed presently, when one of the great traveller’s 
native companions came to England, and was shown a stuffed Gorilla, lie decided that it was not the 
same thing as the Soko. 
In another part of his journal Livingstone returns to the Soko, which he still calls the Gorilla ; but 
in the drawings given it evidently is not one, and is neither as large in its body nor as ugly in the 
face ; moreover, the large ears would cause it to be considered, were there not other reasons, as one of 
the true Chimpanzees, or Troglodytes Niger. 
The following is an extract from Livingstone’s last journal : — 
“ 24tli August.- — Four Gorillas or Sokos were killed yesterday; an extensive grass-burning forced 
them out of their usual haunt, and coming on the plain they were speared. They often go erect, 
