iiO Quadrumana. -MAMMALIA. Simiad/E. 
Museum measured about five feet four inches in total 
height; and a missionary named Walker is said to have 
obtained one measuring five feet eight inches, but this is 
the larges-t on record. Considering the structure of the 
animal, however, we can easily believe Battel’s state- 
ment that ten men would be unable to overcome a 
single adult even of this size ; and the great dread 
which the natives entertain for it, coupled with the 
difficulty of transplanting such a huge carcass through 
its native forests to any place frequented by Europeans, 
is a sufficient explanation of our long ignorance even 
of the existence of the gorilla. 
From the statements of Dr. Savage and others, it 
appears that the gorilla inhabits the district through 
which flow the Gaboon and Danger rivers. Its dwell- 
ing is in the interior of the counti'y, whilst the chim- 
panzee is met with on the coast. The tribe of Negroes 
inbabitiug this district is called Mpongwe, whence, 
according to Dr. Wilson, is derived the name of Pongo^ 
applied to the species by Battel — the native name of 
the animal being Enge-ena. 
In their native forests the gorillas live in troops, 
which, however, are not so numerous as those of the 
chimpanzees, and consist principally of females; and 
all the natives who furnished Dr. Savage with informa- 
tion upon their habits, agreed in stating that there is 
only one adult male to each troop, and that as the 
young males grow up, they engage in contests for the 
superiority, when the strongest, by killing or driving 
off all the others, establishes himself as the chief of the 
band. The adult male, according to the statements of 
the Negroes, never meets a man in the woods without 
attacking him. When first seen, lie sets up a fearful 
howling, the sound of which has been compared to 
the syllables kha-ah! kha-ah! opens his mouth to 
exhibit his terrible teeth, and contracts the skin of his 
face, so as to acquire an appearance of incredible fero- 
city. The females and the young disappear with the 
first sound of battle, and the male then advances upon 
his enemy in a state of perfect fury, repeating his cries 
at every step. Of course the hunter’s only chance under 
such circumstances is to kill his assailant with a single 
shot ; and as this is not always an easy matter, the 
Negroes are said to recommend the adoption of a course 
which certainly requires more coolness than falls to 
the lot of most men. The best plan of making sure of 
a gorilla, according to this account, is to allow him to 
approach until he grasps the barrel of the gun, and 
then to fire at the moment when, as his custom is, he 
is about to bite the muzzle. If the piece miss fire, the 
gorilla is said to crush the barrel between his teeth, 
when, of course, he makes short work with his unfor- 
tunate antagonist. Hence, as we may suppose, the 
Negroes are not very anxious to go in pursuit of the 
gorillas, and only attempt their destruction in self- 
defence, when they come suddenly upon them in jour- 
neying through the forest, or in their elephant-hunting 
expeditions. The destruction of a gorilla is looked 
upon as a most honourable exploit. Dr. Savage 
records a case in which a Negro slave, having succeeded 
in killing an elephant, on his return met with a male 
gorilla, which, being a good marksman, he shot, and 
soon afterwards, firlling in with a female, killed her also. 
These feats, performed in a single day, were looked 
upon as almost superhuman ; the fortunate slave was 
immediately set free, and pronounced the prince of 
hunters. Captain Wagstaft', who brought the first skulls 
of the gorilla to England, furnished Professor Owen 
with information of a somewhat similar nature, and 
added that when the natives succeed in killing one of 
these animals, they make a fetish of the skull ; those 
brought home by him had been used in this way, and 
still exhibited traces of sacred marks in the form of red 
and white streaks. Although the male is thus so for- 
midable an enemy to man. Dr. Savage denies that 
there is any truth in the stories of their forcing Negresses 
to accompany them to their retreats in the woods, or 
attacking the elephants with clubs, narrated both of 
this and the preceding species by the older writers. 
These stories, however, are confirmed by a recent 
French traveller, M. Gautier Laboulaye; but upon 
what authority does not appear. Their food, as stated 
by Battel, consists of nuts and fruits ; and, according to 
Dr. Savage, they are especially fond of the acid fruits 
of some species of Amomum, and of those of the oil 
palm (Ela'is guineensis), the Papaw {Carica papaya), 
and the Banana {^Musa sapientum). They are also 
said to be partial to sugar-canes. 
THE OEANG-OTJTAN (Simia Satyrus). Plate 1, 
fig. 2. 
The remarkable man-like apes of the great Indian 
islands, appear to have been entirely unknown to the 
ancients, unless Pliny’s mention of Indian satyrs 
refers to the orang-outan. It is not, indeed, until the 
middle of the seventeenth century, that we find any 
notice of these animals in the writings of Europeans. 
About this period, the Orang-outan is mentioned by 
Johnston in his “Historia Animalium,” but described 
as brought from Angola. In 1658, however, some 
genuine observations upon the orang, were published 
in Holland; their author, Bontius, a Dutch physician 
residing in Batavia, having seen “ several of these 
satyrs of both sexes” in that country. The English 
anatomist, Tyson, whose work on the chimpanzee has 
already been quoted, also refers to the orang-outan, 
upon the appearance and habits of which he had 
obtained some details from a French missionary, 
named Lecomte ; and a little later, Leguat, a French 
voyager, gave a description of a large ape which he 
saw in captivity in Java, and which could only have 
been an orang-outan. The notices of the species then 
become more frequent in works on Natural History; 
but the two great authorities of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, Linnaeus and Buffon, both agreed in regarding 
the great Indian and African apes as belonging to a 
single species. They were imperfectly distinguished 
by Gmelin, who still describes the pongo as a variety 
of the orang-outan, inhabiting both Java and Guinea. 
Since the chimpanzee has been clearly recognized as 
a species distinct from the orang, there has been a 
tendency to multiply the species of the large Eastern 
apes; and we find no less than six supposed species 
described by different authors, principally from pecu- 
liarities in the structure of the skeleton. It would 
appear, however, from the recent observations of Mr. 
A. R. Wallace upon the orangs of Borneo, that some 
