GORILLA. 
37 
Africa, which gave a full and illustrated narrative of numerous personal encounters 
with gorillas. Somewhat later, an Englishman, Mr. Win wood Reade, made an 
expedition to the Gabun for the purpose of verifying these accounts; the results 
of his journey being given in a work entitled Savage Africa, of which the first 
edition appeared in 1863. In this work it is asserted that neither Du Chaillu nor 
any other European had up to that date ever seen a wild, living gorilla in its 
native haunts, though he possibly did not refer to those driven to the shore in 
1851; and his assertions are supported by the members of the German Loango 
Expedition of 1873-76. Be this as it may, Du Chaillu’s accounts of gorilla-hunting 
have been so frequently quoted that we need hardly dwell on them here. 
Characteristics. 
We now proceed to describe the gorilla, noticing especially the 
more important characters in which it differs from the chimpanzee. 
In the first place, it may, however, be observed that both these animals agree in the 
deep black colour of their skin, and the blackish hue of a large portion of the hair. 
One of the most obvious distinctive features of the gorilla, as distinguished from 
the chimpanzee, is that the males are very much larger than the females, while 
their skulls have the beetling, bony ridges overhanging the sockets of the eyes, 
which give to the living animals their peculiarly ferocious and forbidding aspect. 
Then, again, the arms are relatively longer than in the chimpanzee, reaching, in 
the upright position, some considerable distance below the knee, although never 
below the middle of the lower leg or shin. In regard to our figure of the skeleton 
of the gorilla, given on p. 17, it should, however, be observed that it is taken from 
one mounted in a somewhat slouching position, so that the hands reach lower 
down than would have been the case had it been set perfectly upright. Another 
point in which the gorilla differs from the chimpanzee, and thereby departs still 
further from the human type, is the greater length of the median bony union of 
the two branches of the lower jaw. Moreover, the “wisdom-tooth,” or last molar, 
in the upper jaw, is larger than either of the two molars in front of it; this being 
another departure from the chimpanzee and man. 
Such are some of the leading structural features by which the gorilla is 
distinguished from the chimpanzee, and they are those on which zoologists chiefly 
rely in referring these animals to different genera. We shall see, however, 
immediately that there are many other points of difference, but before noticing 
these we must mention certain characteristics by which the chimpanzee and 
gorilla are collectively distinguished from the lower Man-like Apes, and thereby 
agree with man. One of these is that the total number of joints in the backbone, 
or vertebrae, lying between the solid mass called the sacrum and the neck is 
seventeen, or the same as in man. It is true, indeed, that whereas in man only 
twelve of these vertebrae carry ribs, in the gorilla and chimpanzee thirteen are so 
provided; but this is a matter of minor import, which is entirely overbalanced 
by the numerical identity of the vertebrae. The other point is the absence of the 
central bone in the wrist; so that whereas in man, the chimpanzee, and the 
gorilla the total number of separate wrist-bones is but eight, in all the other 
Primates it is nine. This is a very important characteristic in connecting these 
two apes with man. 
