THEIR ANATOMY. 
57 
that of the Gorilla, but the thumb is shorter, and this makes it more Monkey-like than human ; and 
the same may be said of the lower limbs, for the thigh-bone and those of the leg, although greatly 
resembling those of the Gorilla, have many peculiarities which make them resemble those of the less 
important Monkeys. Finally, with regard to the foot, that of the Chimpanzee is more Monkeyish 
than that of the Gorilla. The great Ape’s foot has many peculiarities which make it differ from, 
that of man, and these are all magnified, as it were, in the Chimpanzee, whose foot, therefore, is all 
the more unlike ours. It is especially adapted for grasping and climbing, and less well suited for 
occasionally standing erect and walking. Its heel is short and slender, and the toe-thumb is smaller, 
and the whole foot is slenderer, than the Gorilla’s. Moreover, it is more turned in. 
When young, there are no crests on the head, but with age a small one grows on either side in 
front, running from about the centre of each side of the brow ridge over the receding forehead, and 
joining together in the middle line, close to the top of the skull. This meets a larger and stronger one, 
which is a miniature of the head crest of the Gorilla, and which reaches from ear to ear. The use is 
probably for the attachment of the masticating muscles at the side, and for that of the muscles of the 
neck behind ; but it is also a kind of ornament of the males. 
Strong as this Ape is in its loins, from its extra ribs, the hip-bones seem narrow from side to side ; 
and one of the causes of this is interesting, not 
only because it is also noticed in the other great 
Apes, but also because it is one of their marked 
distinctions from man. 
The pieces of the back-bone (or vertebras), 
as they pass between the hip-bones behind, unite 
them together, and degenerate until they form 
the curious little tail-end of the back-bone, 
which in us, and in the Apes, is curled slightly, 
with the concave part of the bend forward. 
The pieces unite strongly to each other above 
and below, and form really one bone, which is 
called the sacrum. How, if these pieces were 
nearly or quite as stout and broad as those 
higher up, the hips would be wide apart ; but 
if they become narrow, the hips will be all the closer together. In man, the pieces are broad, and the 
sacrum, as a whole, is so also, and the hips are widely separate; but the reverse is the case in the 
Apes. 
This difference in the breadth of the bone and the width of the hip lias evidently to do with the 
maintenance of the erect posture in man, and the inability to keep erect for long, and comfortably, by 
these great Apes. The larger the surface of the sacrum, the greater is the mass of muscle passing to 
the back and downwards ; and this is small in comparison in the Chimpanzee. 
Where the proper vertebrae of the sacrum end — that is to say, the pieces of the back-bone which 
are placed between the hip (ilium) bones — the tail begins. It is made up of three stunted bones, 
which are something like ill-made back-bone pieces (vertebrae) ; they are usually inseparably joined 
together to make a special bone, which is broad above, and tapering below. This bone, the rudiment 
of the tail, which, from some fancied resemblance to a Cuckoo’s back, lias been called the cuckoo- 
bone (os coccygis ), is covered by skin and embedded in muscles, which do not allow it to stick out 
visibly even as a stump ; for its tip is curled inwards. Tliis apology for the member which is 
so vastly important in many Monkeys is narrow in the man-like Apes, the black Chimpanzee included; 
but it is a little wider in man, although the general construction is the same. Could these bones 
which, by their being united, form this rudiment of a tail — be disunited and increased in number, stuck 
out, and covered with skin and muscles, something like the very Monkey-like appendage would be 
formed. But noble tails are not the gifts of the higher Apes, as they are called, from their many 
points of resemblance in structure with man, and even in the smaller Monkeys they are extieme \ 
variable belongings, being given to one kind and not to another in a manner far beyond our philosophy. 
The Chimpanzee has a long palate, like the other great Apes of the West African woods. 
