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Title: Cassell's Natural History, Vol. 1 (of 6)

Editor: P. Martin Duncan

Contributor: W. S. Dallas
P. Martin Duncan
James Murie

Release date: October 1, 2017 [eBook #55660]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASSELL'S
NATURAL HISTORY, VOL. 1 (OF 6) ***

Transcriber’s Notes
This e-text is based on ‘Cassell’s Natural History, Vol. I,’ from 1896. Inconsistent and uncommon
spelling and hyphenation have been retained; punctuation and typographical errors have been
corrected.
In the original book, Chapter XI of the order ‘Quadrumana’ (page 185) had been erroneously
named ‘Chapter IX.’ The correct sequence of chapter numbers has been restored.
In the List of Illustrations, some image titles do not match the illustrations presented in the text.
The following titles have been changed:

‘The Green and RedMonkeys’ → ‘The Gorilla’ (To face page 111)
‘The Sacred Baboon’ → ‘The Chimpanzee’ (To face page 137)
‘A Group of Lemuroids’ → ‘Anubis Baboon’ (To face page 211)

The list item ‘Hand of the Spider Monkey’ has been added by the transcriber.
The printed book shows some references to numbered ‘Plates’ (full-page images). This numbering
scheme seems to originate from an earlier edition. Even though the present edition shows no image
numbers, all original references have been retained.

ORANG-UTAN AND CHIMPANZEES IN THE BERLIN AQUARIUM.
(From an Original Drawing.)
❏
LARGER IMAGE

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LITH. LONDON.

BIRDS.
1. Gould’s Humming Bird (Ornismya gouldii).
2. Kingfisher. (Alcedo ispida).
3. Arctic Tern (Sterna hirundo).

4. White-bellied Swift (Cypselus melba).
5. Smew (Mercus albellus).
6. Penguin (Pygoscelis tæniata).
7. The Amazon Parrot (Chrysotis).
8. Heron (Ardea cinerea).
9. Eared Owl (Asio otus).
10. White-tailed Eagle (Haliaëtus albicilla).
11. Black-headed Gros-beak (Coccothraustes erythromelas).
12. Impeyan Pheasant (Lophophorus sclateri).
13. Common Rhea (Rhea americana).
14. Crown Pigeon (Goura scheepmakeri).
❏
LARGER IMAGE

CASSELL’S

NATURAL HISTORY

EDITED BY

P. MARTIN DUNCAN, M.B.
(LOND.), F.R.S., F.G.S.
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN AND HONORARY FELLOW OF
KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON; CORRESPONDENT OF THE
ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA

VOL. I.

ILLUSTRATED

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED
LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE
1896

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

APES AND MONKEYS.
PROFESSOR P. MARTIN DUNCAN, M.B.
(LOND.), F.R.S. F.G.S., &c.

LEMURS.
J. MURIE, M.D., LL.D., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.,
AND

PROFESSOR P. MARTIN DUNCAN.

CHIROPTERA.
W. S. DALLAS, F.L.S.

INSECTIVORA.
W. S. DALLAS, F.L.S.

CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xiii
CLASS MAMMALIA.
ORDER I.—QUADRUMANA.—THE APES AND
MONKEYS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION—THE MAN-SHAPED APES—THE GORILLA.
The World of Monkeys, and its Division into great Groups—Distinction
between the Old World and New World Monkeys—Classification of
Monkeys—THE GORILLA, Ancient and Modern Stories about it—
Investigations of Savage and Du Chaillu—General Description—The
Head, Brain, Teeth, Taste, Smell, and Voice—The Air Sacs, and Ear—The
Limbs and Muscles—Method of Climbing—Diet—Hunting the Gorilla—
Attempts to Capture Alive—A Tame Gorilla 1

CHAPTER II.
THE MAN-SHAPED APES (continued)—THE NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ—THE KOOLO-KAMBA—THE
SOKO—THE CHIMPANZEE.
THE NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ—Its Nests and Habits—A Specimen Shot—
Differences between it and the Gorilla—Structural Peculiarities—THE
KOOLO-KAMBA—Meaning of the Name—Discovered by Du Chaillu—Its
Outward Appearance and Anatomy—THE SOKO—Discovered by
Livingstone—Hunting the Soko—THE CHIMPANZEE—In Captivity—On
board Ship—A Young Chimpanzee—The Brain and Nerves—Anatomical
Peculiarities—General Remarks upon the Group 39

CHAPTER III.
THE MAN-SHAPED APES (continued)—GENUS Simia—THE ORANG-UTAN.
Origin of the Name—Description of the Orang—Rajah Brooke’s First
Specimen—Mr. Wallace’s Experiences in Mias Hunting—The Home of
the Mias—A Mias at Bay—Their Nests, Habits, Food, and Localities—
Different kinds of Orangs—Structural Points—The Intelligence and
Habits of the Young—The Brain and its Case—Resemblances and
Differences of Old and Young 59

CHAPTER IV.
THE MAN-SHAPED APES (concluded)—THE GIBBONS—THE SIAMANGS—THE TRUE GIBBONS.
General Characteristics of the Species—THE SIAMANG—Its Habits and 73
Anatomy—Distinctness from the Orangs and Gibbons—Special

Peculiarities—THE WHITE-HANDED GIBBON—Where Found—Its Cry—Its
Habits—Special Anatomical Features—THE HOOLOOK—Where Found—
A Young One in Captivity—Shape of the Skull—THE WOOYEN APE—Its
Appearance and Habits—THE WOW-WOW—Very little known about it—
THE AGILE GIBBON—Reason of the Name—Peculiarities of the Anatomy
—General Comparison of the Different Varieties of the Great Apes

CHAPTER V.
THE DOG-SHAPED MONKEYS—SEMNOPITHECUS—COLOBUS.
General Characteristics of the Monkeys of the Old World—Distinguished from
the Apes by Length of the Hinder Limbs and presence of Tails—Divided
into those with and those without Cheek-pouches—Use of the Cheek-
pouches—The two Genera of Pouchless Monkeys—THE SACRED
MONKEYS, or Semnopitheci—Derivation of the Name—First Discovery—
Ape Worship in India—General Description—Limited to Asia—THE
SIMPAI—Its Locality and Appearance—THE BUDENG—Hunted for their
Fur—Its Colour and Appearance—THE LONG-NOSED MONKEY—Reason
of the Name—Quaint Appearance of the Young—Anatomical Peculiarities
—Their First Appearance in Europe—Description of the Nose—Peculiar
Formation of the Stomach—Bezoars—THE HOONUMAN MONKEY—The
Sacred Monkey of the Hindoos—Legends about it—THE DOUC MONKEY
—Its Appearance and Habitat—THE BLACK-LEGGED DOUC—Anatomical
Peculiarities—THE CROWNED MONKEY—THE RED MONKEY—THE
SUMATRA MONKEY—THE WHITE-BEARDED MONKEY—Found in Ceylon—
Its Intelligence—THE GREAT WANDEROO—Other Ceylonese Monkeys—
THE GENUS COLOBUS, or Thumbless Monkeys—Description of the Hand
and Wrist—Different Varieties—COLOBUS VERUS—COLOBUS GUEREZA—
Their Habitat and Peculiarities—Fossil Semnopitheci 84

CHAPTER VI.
THE DOG-SHAPED MONKEYS (continued)—THE GUENONS.
THE GUENONS—Where they are Found—Early Notices of them—Resemblance
to the Colobi and Macaques—Distinctive Peculiarity of the Group—Often
seen in Menageries—Their Terror of Snakes—Peculiar Expression of the
Face—Beauty of their Skins—Minor Divisions of the Guenons—THE
DIANA MONKEY—Origin of the Name—Anecdotes of their Mischief—
THE MONA MONKEY—Description of one at Paris—THE WHITE-NOSED
MONKEY—Origin of the Name—THE TALAPOIN—Anatomical
Peculiarities—THE GREEN MONKEY—Found in Senegal in abundance—
THE RED-BELLIED MONKEY—THE RED MONKEY—Observed by Bruce—
THE MANGABEY—Singularity of its Appearance—Special Structural
Peculiarities 103

CHAPTER VII.
THE DOG-SHAPED MONKEYS (continued)—THE MACAQUES.
Their Description and Anatomy, and its reference to that of the Semnopitheci 114
and Guenons—THE COMMON MACAQUE—Its Character—Appropriateness
of the Name—Occasionally an Albino—THE ROUND-FACED MACAQUE—
Found in China—Ideas of the Chinese about them—THE TOQUE, OR

BONNET MONKEY—THE BHUNDER—Described by Cuvier—Their
Thieving Propensities—Hindoo Tales of their Sagacity—THE MOOR
MONKEY—BELANGER’S MONKEY—THE PIG-TAILED MACAQUE—THE
MAGOT—One of the Commonest Monkeys—Described by Galen—Early
Notices of—Predatory Habits—Abundant at Gibraltar—Probably come
over from Africa—Similarity to the Baboons—THE WANDEROO—Account
of one in the Zoological Society’s Collection—Geographical Range of the
Macaques

CHAPTER VIII.
THE DOG-SHAPED MONKEYS (continued)—THE BABOONS.
Early Accounts of the Baboon—Origin of the Name—Held as Sacred by the
Egyptians—Used as the Emblem of Thoth—Brought into Europe in the
Middle Ages—Their Literature—General Description of the Family—
Structural Peculiarities—Brain—Skull—Geographical Distribution—THE
SACRED BABOON—Found in Great numbers in Abyssinia—Formidable
Antagonists—Size and Colour of the Male and Female—Anecdotes—
Propensity for Spirituous Liquors and Thieving—THE GELADA BABOON—
THE PIG-TAILED BABOON—Usually called Chacma—Description of it—Its
Ferocity in Captivity—Le Vaillant’s Monkey—THE SPHINX BABOON—Its
Dexterity of Aim—THE ANUBIS BABOON—Its Locality and Food—
Method of Running—THE COMMON BABOON—Often found in Captivity
—Anecdotes—Anatomical Peculiarities 129

CHAPTER IX.
THE DOG-SHAPED MONKEYS (concluded)—THE BABOONS.
The Second Division of the Baboons—THE MANDRILL—Easily distinguished
from the rest—Peculiar Appearance and Colour of the Face—The Cheek-
ridges—Noticed by the Ancients—Brutality of its Disposition—“Jerry” at
the Surrey Gardens—Their Wild State—Anatomical Peculiarities—The
Back-bone and Liver—THE DRILL—Distinguished from the Mandrill—
Probable Antiquity of these Baboons—Theories of their Relationship to
other Animals—THE BLACK BABOON—Its Locality and Description—
Probably a Forest Ape—General Summary of the Dog-shaped
Quadrumana and Classification of the Group 154

CHAPTER X.

THE MONKEYS OF THE NEW WORLD.
THE CEBIDÆ—THE HOWLERS—THE WOOLLY MONKEYS—THE SPIDER MONKEYS—THE
SAJOUS.
The Monkeys of the New World—How Distinguished from those of the Old— 164
Their Division into Families—The First Family, THE CEBIDÆ, with
Prehensile Tails—THE HOWLERS—Appropriateness of their Name—
Where Found—General Description—THE YELLOW-TAILED HOWLER—
Anatomical Peculiarities and Appearance of the Face—Other Members of
the Family—THE BLACK HOWLER—Its Locality—THE WOOLLY MONKEYS
—THE CAPARRO AND BARRIGUDO—First noticed by Humboldt—
Peculiarities of the Skeleton—THE SPIDER MONKEYS—Seen by Humboldt

in the Brazilian Forests—Remarkable Power of the Tail—Flexibility of the
Limbs—Conformation of the Brain—Other Species—THE COAITA—
Curious Stories of them in Captivity—THE CHAMECK—THE BLACK
SPIDER MONKEY—Its Geographical Range—Its Position in Sleep—THE
VARIEGATED SPIDER MONKEY—THE SAJOUS—THE CAIARÁRA—Observed
by Bates on the Amazon—Other Varieties—THE BROWN SAJOU—THE
CAPUCHIN SAJOU—Described by Brehm—Their Remarkable Dexterity
and Cleverness—Diseases of Monkeys

CHAPTER XI.
THE CEBIDÆ (concluded)—THE SQUIRREL MONKEYS—DOUROUCOULIS—SAKIS.
General Description of the Second Division of Cebidæ—Without Prehensile
Tails—THE SQUIRREL MONKEYS—Described by Buffon and Humboldt—
Peculiarities of the Species—Anecdotes by Le Vaillant—A Tragic End—
THE WIDOW MONKEY—Origin of the Name—THE ONAPPO—Its Nocturnal
Habits and Peculiar Cry—THE DOUROUCOULIS, OR OWL MONKEYS—
General Description of the Family—Peculiar Formation of the Arm-bone
—THE THREE-STRIPED OWL MONKEY—Described by Humboldt and Bates
—THE RED-FOOTED DOUROUCOULI—THE SAKIS—Remarkable
Resemblance in the Face to Man—Structural Peculiarities—THE COUXIO
—THE PARAUACÚ—THE MONK—Description of the Brain—Other
Varieties of the Sakis—Anecdotes of them—THE BLACK-HEADED SAKIS—
General Description 185

CHAPTER XII.
THE MARMOSETS AND TAMARINS—HAPALE—MIDAS.
The Dentition of the Genus Hapale, or the Marmosets, or Ouistitis—The Face
—The Paw-like Hands and Feet—Their Claws—The Skull and Brain, and
the Nature of the Diet—THE COMMON MARMOSET—Its Habits—THE
CLOAKED MARMOSET—THE GENUS MIDAS—THE TAMARINS—Their
Dentition—THE NEGRO TAMARIN—Its Habits—MIDAS ARGENTATUM—
DEVILLE’S MIDAS—THE SILKY TAMARIN—Notes on the Arctopithecini in
General 197

CHAPTER XIII.
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE MONKEYS.
The Classification of the Monkeys of the New World—The Geographical
Distribution of the Genera—The Fossil Monkeys of the New and Old
World and their Alliances—The Former Old Fauna of Europe, Asia, and
Africa—The Resemblance of Monkeys to other Animals and Man 203

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LEMUROIDA.
THE GENERA INDRIS AND LEPILEMUR HAPALEMUR.
The Name of the Genus Lemur popularly given to the Group—Lemuroida the 210
Correct Name—Their Distinctive Characters—Their Hands and Feet—
Ankle-bones—Tail—Rete Mirabile—Nostrils—Colour of the Eye—Ears

—Teeth—Brain—Resemblance to Monkeys—Their Locality—Lemur at
Liberty—Its Playfulness—Division of the Lemurs—Beauties of
Madagascar—GENUS INDRIS—Described by Grandidier—Their Locality
—Colour—Fingers—Teeth—THE DIADEM INDRIS—Specimens at the
British Museum—Little known about it—THE WOOLLY LEMUR—
Described by Sonnerat—THE SHORT-TAILED INDRIS—Distinguished by its
Tail—Its Skull—GENUS LEPILEMUR—Their Teeth—Tail—THE WEASEL
LEMUR—THE GREY LEMUR—Specimens obtained by Pollen—Their Cry

CHAPTER XV.

THE LEMUROIDA (continued).
THE GENERA LEMUR AND CHEIROGALE.
Called by the French Makis—Restricted to Madagascar—Their Activity—
Different Species—How to Distinguish them—THE RING-TAILED LEMUR
—Reason for the Name—Tail—Colour of Body—Eye—Hand and Foot—
Geographical Range—Anatomical Peculiarities—Playfulness in Captivity
—THE WHITE-FRONTED LEMUR—Specimen in the Zoological Gardens—
THE LEMUR OF MAYOTTE—Where Found—Colour—Manner of Life—
THE MONGOOSE LEMUR—Description of one sent to Buffon—THE RUFFED
LEMUR—Described by Ellis—Domesticated Specimens—THE BLACK
LEMUR—Geographical Range—Hand—Foot—GENUS CHEIROGALE—
Bushy Tails—Resemblance to the Hapalemur—Nocturnal Habits—
Difficult to Distinguish—THE FORKED-CROWNED CHEIROGALE—
Wonderful Powers of Leaping—Cry—Reason for the Name—A Nest-
making Variety—Specimens in the Jardin des Plantes—Resemblance to
the Galagos 225

CHAPTER XVI.
THE LEMUROIDA (concluded)—THE GALAGOS.
THE GALAGOS—DEMIDOFF’S GALAGO AND THE MOUSE GALAGO—THE
SENEGAL GALAGO—THE SENNAAR GALAGO—THE MAHOLI GALAGO—
THE GRAND, OR THICK-TAILED GALAGO—MONTEIRO’S GALAGO—THE
AFRICAN SLOW LEMURS—VAN BOSMAN’S POTTO—GENUS ARCTOCEBUS,
OR BEAR MONKEY TRIBE—THE ANGWÁNTIBO—THE ASIATIC SLOW
LEMUROIDS—THE SLOW LORIS—THE SLENDER LORIS—GENUS TARSIUS—
THE SPECTRE TARSIER, OR TARSIUS—THE MALMAG—GENUS CHEIROMYS
—THE AYE-AYE—The Puzzle of the Naturalists—Opinions regarding it—
Specimen Examined by Owen—Feeding—Teeth—Hands—Classification
of the Lemuroida—Geographical Distribution 236

CHIROPTERA, OR WING-HANDED ANIMALS.
THE BATS.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION—CLASSIFICATION OF BATS—THE FRUIT-EATING BATS.

One of Æsop’s Fables—Opinions of the Ancients regarding Bats—Scaliger’s
Statement of the Puzzle—Opinions of the Middle Ages—The True
Position of the Bats—The Wing of the Bat—General Structure: The
Breast-bone, Arms, Fingers, “Wing-membrane,” Wings, Skull, Ribs,
Pelvis, Legs—In Repose—Walking—The Teats—Organs of the Senses
—“Blind as a Bat”—The Eyes—Spallanzani’s Experiments—The Bat’s
Power of Directing its Flight in the Darkest Places—Their Food—In
Winter-Quarters—A Battue of Bats—FRUGIVOROUS AND INSECTIVOROUS
BATS 259

CHAPTER II.
SUB-ORDER I.—MEGACHIROPTERA, OR LARGE BATS.
PTEROPIDÆ, OR FRUIT-EATING BATS.
Characteristics of Fruit-eating Bats—Distribution—Diet—Flying Fox of
Ceylon: its Habits, as described by Sir E. Tennent—The Flight of the
Pteropidæ—Known to the Ancients—The Fruit Bats in the Zoological
Gardens—INDIAN FLYING FOX—Diet—Dissipated Habits—GREAT
KALONG—Linnæus’s Description—In their Dormitories—NICOBAR,
MANED, JAPANESE, AND GREY FRUIT BATS—GREY-HEADED FRUIT BAT—
GOULD’S FRUIT BAT—ROUSSETTE—EGYPTIAN FRUIT BAT—HOTTENTOT
FRUIT BAT—MARITIME FRUIT BAT—MARGINED FRUIT BAT—WHITE’S
FRUIT BAT—HAMMER-HEADED BAT—HARPY BAT—GREATER HARPY BAT
—CLOAKED FRUIT BAT—DWARF LONG-TONGUED FRUIT BAT—BLACK-
CHEEKED FRUIT BAT—FIJIAN LONG-TONGUED FRUIT BAT 266

CHAPTER III.
SUB-ORDER II.—MICROCHIROPTERA, OR INSECTIVOROUS BATS.
HORSESHOE BATS AND MEGADERMS.
INSECTIVOROUS BATS—Mr. Dobson’s Objection to the Name—Characteristics
—Nasal Appendages—THE VESPERTILIONINE AND EMBALLONURINE
ALLIANCES—The Fur in the two Alliances—THE HORSESHOE BATS—
General Characteristics—Distribution—Diet—Carnivorous Propensities—
GREATER HORSESHOE BAT—General Appearance—“Nose Leaves”—
Habitat—THE LESSER HORSESHOE BAT—Habitat—THE MOURNING
HORSESHOE BAT—THE AUSTRALIAN HORSESHOE BAT—THE ORANGE BAT
—PHYLLORHINÆ—THE DIADEM BAT—Character of their “Nose
Leaves”—Captain Hutton’s Account of their Habits—THE PERSIAN
TRIDENT BAT—THE MEGADERMS—THE LYRE BAT—Characteristics—
Called Vampire by Europeans in India—Mr. Blyth’s Account of a
Megaderm’s Blood-thirstiness—THE CORDATE LEAF BAT—THE AFRICAN
MEGADERM—THE DESERT BAT 279

CHAPTER IV.
VESPERTILIONIDÆ, OR TRUE BATS.
The Genus Vespertilio and the Family Vespertilionidæ—Characteristics: 292
Nostrils—Tail—Ears—Dentition—Diet—Distribution—LONG-EARED BAT
—Ears—Distribution—Asleep—In Captivity—BARBASTELLE—
Characteristics—Distribution—Habits—Flight—In Captivity—BIG-EARED

BAT—TOWNSEND’S BAT—The Genus Nyctophilus—Its True Place—
Characteristics—GEOFFROY’S NYCTOPHILE—PIPISTRELLE—Distribution—
Diet—NOCTULE—Natural Food—Mr. Daniell’s Observations—SEROTINE
—PARTI-COLOURED BAT—HAIRY-ARMED BAT—NEGRO BAT—KUHL’S BAT
—NILSSON’S BAT—COROMANDEL BAT—THICK-FOOTED BAT—
TEMMINCK’S BAT—WELWITSCH’S BAT—NEW ZEALAND BAT—MOUSE-
COLOURED BAT—NATTERER’S BAT—DAUBENTON’S BAT—WHISKERED BAT
—BLACK AND ORANGE BAT—PAINTED BAT—HARPY BAT—RED BAT—
SCHREIBER’S BAT—BROWN PIG BAT—STRAW-COLOURED BAT

CHAPTER V.
EMBALLONURIDÆ, OR THICK-LEGGED BATS.
Characteristics of the Emballonuridæ, or THICK-LEGGED BATS—CUVIER’S FURY
—The Genus Saccopteryx—STRIPED SACK-WINGED BAT—The Pouch or
Sac in the Wing-membrane—Dentition—MOUNTAIN BAT—TOMB BAT—
Origin of its Name—Dentition—The Peculiar Sac or Pouch under the
Chin—Other Species of the Genus (note)—EGYPTIAN RHINOPOME—
Difficulty of Assigning its True Place in the System—Characteristics—
GREAT HARE-LIPPED BAT—Seba’s Description—Linnæus’s Mistake—
Dentition—Distribution—The Genus Nyctinomus—CESTONI’S BAT—PALE
CHESTNUT MASTIFF BAT—Distribution—Habits—SMOKY MASTIFF BAT—
Habits—COLLARED BAT—Hideous Ugliness—Characteristics—NEW
ZEALAND SHORT-TAILED BAT—Characteristics—Mr. Dobson on the Wing-
membrane, Thumb, and Foot 312

CHAPTER VI.
PHYLLOSTOMIDÆ, OR VAMPIRES.
Distinguishing Marks of the Phyllostomidæ—Location—Diet—Blood-sucking
Propensities—Exaggerations of the Older Writers—Testimony of Azara—
Darwin’s Evidence—Bat-bites—The Witness of Bates, Wallace, Fraser,
Prince Maximilian—Conclusion of the Whole Matter—The Desmodonts
and Javelin Bat—The Tongue in the Genus Phyllostoma—BLAINVILLE’S
BAT—Extraordinary Development of Face and Head—OWL-FACED BAT—
JAVELIN BAT—Allied Species—VAMPIRE BAT—Mr. Bates’ Testimony to
its Inoffensiveness, and Description of its Habits—NEUWIED’S LARGE-
LEAFED BAT—GREAT-EARED LEAF BAT—SORICINE BAT—REDMAN’S BAT
—SEZEKORN’S LEAF BAT—SPECTACLED STENODERM—JAMAICAN
STENODERM—DESMODUS—Classification—Dentition—Blood-sucking
Propensities—The Bites—Stomachs of Desmodus, Frugivorous and
Insectivorous Bats—Concluding Remarks 324

ORDER INSECTIVORA.
CHAPTER I.
COLUGOS—BANGSRINGS—JUMPING SHREWS—HEDGEHOGS—TANRECS—RIVER SHREWS.
Functions of the Insect-eaters in the Order of Nature—Their Leading 342
Peculiarities—Classification—COLUGOS—Various Opinions regarding

their Place—COLUGO, OR FLYING LEMUR—The Patagium—Parachute-like
Membrane—Dentition—Offspring—Diet—BANGSRINGS—TANA—
FERRUGINOUS BANGSRING—HORSFIELD’S BANGSRING—LOW’S
PTILOCERQUE—SHORT-TAILED BANGSRING—JUMPING SHREWS—
ELEPHANT SHREW—ALGERIAN JUMPING SHREW—PETRODROME—
RHYNCHOCYON—HEDGEHOG—Characteristics—Distribution—Diet—
Attacks Snakes and Vipers—Taste for Eggs and Game—Its “Spiny
Skin”—“Rolled up”—Enemies—Female and Young—LONG-EARED
HEDGEHOG—COLLARED HEDGEHOG—BULAU—TANRECS—TANREC—
TENDRAC—TELFAIR’S TENDRAC—RICE TENDRAC—EARED EARTH SHREW
—AGOUTA—ALMIQUI—WEST AFRICAN RIVER SHREW

CHAPTER II.
GOLDEN MOLES—MOLES—DESMANS—SHREWS.
General Description of the Golden Mole Family—Their Points of Difference
from the True Mole—THE CAPE GOLDEN MOLE—Its Varieties—The
Family of True Moles—THE COMMON MOLE—Described—Distribution—
Teeth—Fore-limbs—Breast-bone—Not a Miserable Creature—Extreme
Voracity—Diet—His Blindness a Popular Error—A Thirsty Soul—His
Fortress—The Roads leading to it—Speed of a Frightened Mole—“Mole-
hills”—A-wooing—His Strong Family Affections—His Persecution a
Doubtful Benefit—THE BLIND MOLE—Several Allied Species—THE
STAR-NOSED MOLE—Its Snout—THE COMMON SHREW MOLE—Other
Species in the United States—The Family of Desmans—THE DESMAN—
Its Otter-like Habits—Its Trunk—THE PYRENEAN DESMAN—THE HAIRY-
TAILED MOLE-SHREW—The Family of Shrews—THE COMMON SHREWOr
Shrew-Mouse—Superstitions about it—DEKAY’S SHREW—THE GARDEN
SHREW—THE TUSCAN SHREW—THE RAT-TAILED SHREW—THE WATER
SHREW—Essentially Aquatic—Its Prey—Allied Species—THE TIBETAN
WATER SHREW—THE TAILLESS SHREW—Concluding Remarks—
Classification—Distribution—Affinities 365

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Orang-utan and Chimpanzees in the Berlin Aquarium Frontispiece.
Group of Apes and Monkeys, and a Lemur 1
American Monkey, with Prehensile Tail 2
One of the Anthropomorpha—The Chimpanzee 3
One of the Cynomorpha—The Baboon 4
Group of Lemurs 5
Foot and Hand of a Monkey—A Catarhine Monkey—A
Platyrhine Monkey—Monkey with Cheek Pouches 6
The Male Gorilla 8
Female Gorilla and Young 9
Front View of the Skull of the Gorilla 10
A Family of Gorillas 13
Face of the Gorilla 15
Palm of the Foot of Young Gorilla—Back of the Hand
of Young Gorilla 16
Side View of the Skull of Gorilla 17
The Teeth of the Gorilla 20
Skeleton of the Gorilla 21
Throat of Gorilla 22
Forest in the Gaboon Country—The Land of the Gorilla 24
Bones of the Fore-arm and Arm of the Gorilla—Side
View. Shoulder or Blade-bone 25
Hand-bones of the Gorilla 28
Hunting the Gorilla 32
Bones of the Ankle and Foot of Man—Bones of the
Ankle and Foot of Gorilla 33
Young Gorilla and Dog 38
The Nschiego Mbouvé 40
Skeleton of Nschiego 41
Skull of Nschiego 42
The Koolo-Kamba 44
Portrait of a Young Soko 47
A Soko Hunt 48
The Chimpanzee 49
A Village in the Gaboon Country 52

Sick Orang-utan 53
Brain of Chimpanzee 57
Orang-utans To face
page 61
Front and Side Face of the Orang 61
The Orang at Bay 64
A Family of Orang-utans 65
The Orang and its Nest 68
A Young Orang 69
The Air Pouches of Orang—The Brain of Orang 71
Wrist-bones of Orang 72
The Siamang 73
Skeleton of the Siamang 76
Group of Siamangs and Gibbons To face
page 77
The White-handed Gibbon 77
Skull of Hoolook 79
The Hoolook 80
The Wooyen Ape 81
The Agile Gibbon 82
Jaw of the Gibbon—Back of Jaw of the Agile Gibbon 83
Face of the Black-crested Monkey 85
The Negro Monkey 88
The Long-nosed Monkey 89
Young Long-nosed Monkey 90
Stomach of the Long-nosed Monkey 91
The Sumatra Monkey 92
The Douc 93
The Crowned Monkey 93
The Priamus Monkey 97
Colobus Verus 100
The Guereza 101
The Diana Monkey 104
Face of the Diana Monkey 105
The White-nosed Monkey 109
The Head and Shoulders of the Talapoin 110
The Gorilla To face
page 111
The Red-bellied Monkey 112
The Mangabey—The Foot and Hand of the Mangabey 113
The Common Macaque 116

The Toque 117
The Bhunder, and a Bonnet Monkey 120
The Moor Macaque 121
The Pig-tailed Macaque 124
The Magot 125
Wrist-bones of the Magot 126
Face of the Wanderoo 127
The Wanderoo 128
Cynocephalus 131
Judgment Scene from an Egyptian Monument 132
Baboons upon an Ant-hill 133
Brain of the Baboon 136
The Chimpanzee To face
page 137
View in Abyssinia 137
The Sacred Baboon 140
Young Hamadryas 141
A Village in Nubia 142
The Pig-tailed Baboon 145
Skull of the Chacma 147
Skull of the Anubis Baboon 149
The Anubis Baboon 152
The Common Baboon 153
The Mandrill 156
Young Mandrill 157
Skull of the Mandrill 158
The Drill 160
The Black Baboon 161
The Skeleton of the Mandrill 162
A Group of Howlers 165
Bones of the Tail of the Howler 167
Section of Head and of Air Sac of the Howler—Upper
Part of Breast-bone and Collar-bones of the
Howler—Brain of the Howler 168
Yellow-tailed Howler and Young 169
The Caparro 170
Group of Spider Monkeys To face
page 173
Brain of the Spider Monkey 173
Jaw of the Spider Monkey—Hand of the Spider
Monkey 174
The Coaita 176

The Chameck 177
The Black and Variegated Spider Monkeys 179
The Hooded Spider Monkey 180
The Brown Capuchin 181
The Cai 184
The Callithrix Amictus 188
Arm-bone of Owl Monkey 189
The Red-footed Douroucouli 190
Brain of Monk 192
The Monk 193
The Couxio 194
The White-headed Saki 196
The Common Marmosets 197
Hand-bones of Marmoset—Foot-bones of Marmoset 198
Deville’s Midas 201
Skull of Marmoset 202
Head of the Black Howler 205
Young Orangs 209
Anubis Baboon To face
page 211
Lemuroids at Home in Madagascar 212
Head of Indris (Propithecus) Verrauxii, to show
Lemuroid Nostrils 213
Eye of Lemuroid, showing Contraction and Dilatation
of Pupil—Upper Surface Brain of Lemur Catta 214
Side View and Under Surface of the Tongue of a
Lemuroid 215
Garnett’s Galago 216
Skull of Black Indris, showing Adult Dentition—Milk
Dentition of Indris 219
The Diadem Indris and the Woolly Indris 220
The Black or Short-tailed Indris 221
The Weasel Lemur 224
The Grey or Broad-nosed Lemur 225
Ring-tailed Lemurs To face
page 227
The Mongoose Lemur, or Woolly Macaco 229
The Ruffed Lemur 230
Skeleton of the Ruffed Lemur 231
Head of the Black Lemur 232
The Forked-crowned Cheirogale 234
The Maholi Galago and the Senegal Galago 236

Ears of Maholi Galago, contracted and open 237
The Muscles and Tendons of the Tail of Grand Galago
—Foot-bones of Grand, or Thick-tailed Galago 238
Monteiro’s Galago 239
Palm of Hand of Garnett’s Galago—Sole of Foot, with
long heel, of Garnett’s Galago 240
The Potto in its Sleeping and Waking Attitudes 241
The Angwántibo 242
Hand and Foot of Arctocebus 243
The Slow Loris 244
Rete Mirabile—Slow Loris 245
The Slender Loris, showing its Attitudes and Habits 247
The Tarsius 249
The Aye-Aye 251
Forest Scene in Madagascar 253
Bones of the Hand and Foot of Aye-Aye 256
Skull of the Aye-Aye (side and front view) 257
Marsh Bat 258
Skeleton of the Mouse-coloured Bat 260
The Sternum of Flying Fox 261
Barbastelle Walking—Head of Long-eared Bat 263
Head of the Spectacled Vampire 264
Head of the Kalong 266
Fruit Bats of Ceylon at Home To face
page 267
Dentition of the Egyptian Fruit Bat 267
Representation of a Fruit Bat on an Egyptian Monument 269
Collared Fruit Bat with Young 270
Kalong 272
Head of the Maned Fruit Bat—Head of the Grey Fruit
Bat 273
The Roussette 275
Head of the Margined Fruit Bat 276
The Hammer-headed Bat 277
Teeth of the Dwarf Long-tongued Fruit Bat 278
The Black-cheeked Fruit Bat 279
Hairs of Bats, Magnified 280
Head of the Greater Horseshoe Bat 281
The Greater Horseshoe Bat 282
Head of Lesser Horseshoe Bat 283
Head of the Mourning Horseshoe Bat 284
The Orange Bat 285

Head of the Male and Female Diadem Bat 286
Head of the Persian Trident Bat 287
Head of the Lyre Bat—Teeth of the Lyre Bat 288
Head of the Cordate Leaf Bat—Head of the African
Megaderm 289
The African Megaderm—Head of the Desert Bat 290
The Desert Bat 291
Dentition of the Thick-legged Bat 292
British Bats at Home To face
page 293
Long-eared Bats in Flight 293
Long-eared Bat Sleeping 294
Head of Barbastelle 295
Ear and Head of Townsend’s Bat 296
Geoffroy’s Nyctophile 297
Pipistrelle in Flight 298
Head of Noctule 299
Head of Parti-coloured Bat 301
Head of Temminck’s Bat—Welwitsch’s Bat 303
New Zealand Bat 304
Head of Mouse-coloured Bat 305
Black and Orange Bat 307
Skull of Harpy Bat—Skull of Red Bat 309
Foot and Thumb of the Brown Pig Bat 311
Head of Straw-coloured Bat 312
Dentition of Striped Sack-winged Bat—Wing of Striped
Sack-winged Bat, from below—Arm of Striped
Sack-winged Bat, from above 313
The Mountain Bat 314
Skull of Tomb Bat—Dentition of Tomb Bat 315
Head of Male and Female Long-armed Bat—Head of
Male and Female Black-bearded Bat—Skull of
Rhinopome 316
Egyptian Rhinopome—Head of Great Hare-lipped Bat 317
Skull and Front Teeth of Cestoni’s Bat 318
Head of Cestoni’s Bat 319
Head of Collared Bat 321
The Collared Bat 322
Head of New Zealand Short-tailed Bat—Teeth of New
Zealand Short-tailed Bat—Thumb and Foot of
New Zealand Short-tailed Bat 323
The New Zealand Short-tailed Bat 324

Skull of Javelin Bat 325
Mouth of Spectacled Stenoderm—Head of Blainville’s
Bat 328
Skull and Dentition of Blainville’s Bat—Blainville’s
Bat 329
Head of Owl-faced Bat 330
Head of Javelin Bat—Head of Vampire Bat 331
Head of Soricine Bat 333
Redman’s Bat 334
Skull of Desmodus 338
Desmodus 339
Stomach of Desmodus—Stomach of Long-eared Bat—
Stomach of Pteropus 340
Low’s Ptilocerque 342
Skeleton of Shrew—Dentition of Hedgehog 343
Hind Foot of Colugo—Bones of Hind Foot of Colugo 345
Lower Incisors of Colugo—Colugo 346
Skull of Colugo 347
Dentition of Ferruginous Bangsring—Tana, Golden-
tailed Variety 348
Sole of Right Hind Foot of Elephant Shrew—Elephant
Shrew 351
Sole of Right Hind Foot of Petrodrome—The
Rhynchocyon 352
The Hedgehog 354
The Bulau 358
1. Tendrac; 2. Telfair’s Tendrac; 3. Tanrec To face
page 359
Dentition of Tanrec 359
The Agouta 362
Upper Jaw of West African River Shrew 363
Lower Jaw of West African River Shrew—The West
African River Shrew 364
Skull of Golden Mole—Dentition of Golden Mole 365
Sternum of Golden Mole—Fore Foot of Golden Mole 366
The Common Mole 367
Dentition of Common Mole—Fore Limbs of Common
Mole—Sternum of Common Mole 368
Mole’s Fortress 370
Side View of Snout of Star-nosed Mole—Front View of
Snout of Star-nosed Mole 372
Dentition of Desman 375

1. Pigmy Shrew; 2. Common Shrew; 3 and To face
4. Water Shrew page 377
Dentition of Common Shrew 377
Rat-tailed Shrew 379

INTRODUCTION.
HE Natural History of Animals has always been a
most interesting and instructive subject, and its
popularity increases year after year. It is a
branch of knowledge which is entertaining at
every age, and it is a favourite study with men of
every race and country, and of every intellectual
capacity. All children delight in having their
little tasks associated with pictures of animals,
and the alphabet is learned all the more readily
by its being illustrated with spirited drawings of
household pets and the terrible creatures of the woods. The marvels of the
intelligence of the dog and horse are inexhaustible sources of delight to
young readers; and there are few greater pleasures than those which are felt
when living animals, whose descriptions and habits have been the subject of
instruction and amusement, are seen in some large menagerie or zoological
gardens. On the whole, it is probable that few books are so interesting to
young men and women as those which relate to animals, and it is their study
which, in the majority of instances, leads to the desire for further
knowledge of Natural History. The young student soon begins to yearn for
information regarding the manner in which different creatures live; how
some breathe air, how others live in water; how it is that some fly and
others crawl; and he desires to connect the peculiar construction of animals
with their method of life. Or he may be content with endeavouring to
understand the names of animals, and the reasons why they are arranged or
classified in a particular manner by scientific men.
As years roll on, if the interest in Natural History has not diminished,
the man, with increasing intelligence and scope of reading, masters the
knowledge desired in his youth, and has the opportunity, should he care to
grasp it, of the highest intellectual enjoyment. He can enter into the
consideration and discussion of the mysterious problems of life: of its
origin; of the reasons why animals differ; why they are distributed here and
there, or limited in their position in the world; what connection there may

be between those of the past and of the present, and of the relation between
the creation and the Creator.
Besides this, even should he not aim so high, the man who has had a
slight training in Natural History often employs his knowledge for the
benefit of art and commerce. How beautiful are the representations of
animals on some old coins, how grotesque are those on others! Yet the most
correct, and, therefore, the most beautiful, were the result of the careful
study of Nature. What benefits to men have resulted from the production of
certain breeds of horses, sheep, and oxen! But it has been the study of
Nature, and of the laws of the powers of inheritance, which led to most of
these results: and thus the practical man is dependent upon the student for
his success.
Notwithstanding the interesting nature of the study of the Natural
History of Animals, there is certainly more interest taken in it during early
life than later on. As a rule, men have no time for it, or they find that, after
gaining a certain amount of knowledge, they must study hard if further
progress is to be made. Moreover, the vast amount of useless things which
had to be learned at school and college have no relation to Natural History,
except, perhaps, to convey erroneous ideas and to teach fables, so that this
important science has generally to be begun in earnest after the usual
education has been completed. When the determination has been made to
learn the Natural History of Animals, the student will have to study two
separate, yet inter-dependent, branches of knowledge, namely, Zoology and
Comparative Anatomy: for the one considers the external shape, habits,
distribution, and classification of animals, and the other refers to their
internal construction, anatomy, and physiology, and the relation which the
internal parts bear to the external in the scheme of classification. These
studies are evidently inseparable.
Now, it is the fact that, owing to the importance of Comparative
Anatomy to those who study the Anatomy of Man, it is much more
frequently learned than simple Zoology. Comparative Anatomy is useful to
the medical man, but Zoology is not, and therefore the majority of students
whose previous education has led them up to Natural History care but little
for the classificatory part. It is equally true that the names and the
apparently complicated methods of expression used by zoologists deter
most people from the study. If this is a correct view of the relation of the

Natural History of Animals to our education, and to the advance of our
intellectual culture, it is evident that there is a weak point in the method of
the instruction of this charming science during that age when young people
begin to inquire for more solid information. The story-book has been read,
and the heavy work on Zoology and Comparative Anatomy is as yet sealed,
and hence books are required in advance of the one which will lead up to
the other; books which—whilst they entertain—instruct and convey, in
simple language, the results of the best and latest scientific inquiries. This
kind of literature should, moreover, be sufficiently meritorious to attract the
general reader who may desire information in any particular portion of the
Natural History of Animals.
The book of which this is the Preface has been written in order to
obviate the difficulties which have been alluded to, and to form a useful and
entertaining Natural History of Animals. It is the result of the work of
several English naturalists—of men who have felt the want of such a book
in their own studies, and who have had to encounter the difficulties which it
is trusted that it will remove. Every endeavour has been made to explain the
most interesting facts simply and correctly, and to unite the studies of
Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. The anecdotes of the instinct and
habits, and of the methods of the capture of animals, have been given so as
to illustrate particular gifts and the actions of important organs and
structures.
The plan of this Work is not to open with a classification of animals, the
majority of whose names and shapes are entirely unknown to the reader, but
to describe the shape, nature, and habits of groups of creatures, and then,
when they have become familiar, to arrange and classify them. In a popular
work it seems more desirable to proceed upon a plan of this kind, than to
lead off with an introduction dealing with the nature and importance of
Natural History studies, with the abstract ideas of classification, and with
the explanation of the necessity of dividing the Animal kingdom according
to the principles of Comparative Anatomy. For, obviously, such an
introduction would to a large extent defeat the very objects with which this
Work has been undertaken.
It is necessary, however, to make a few observations on what is termed
classification and its nature. Animals are classified by their resemblances
and differences. Those creatures which resemble each other more than

others are grouped together, and are separated from dissimilar groups. The
first act in classification is to distinguish one animal from others by
differences in the shape and internal construction, and the second is to
group together the beings whose differences are small. A kind or species is a
letter of the Zoological Alphabet, and it is usually said to refer to beings
which produce others like unto themselves. A genus is a group of species
closely resembling each other; a word in zoological language made up of
few or many letters of the alphabet. There may be few or many species in a
genus, and whilst some of them very closely resemble each other, others are
not quite so much alike; and these link on one genus to another. The notion
of a genus is to include a number of kinds in a group which has a character
given to it: that is to say, certain peculiarities of shape and of anatomy. It
will be obvious that the genus is an artificial affair, and is necessary for the
purpose of making science easy.
In order to explain this, look at a domestic cat, a lion, a tiger, a leopard,
and a cheetah, and it will be observed that there are differences between
them in shape and colour which cause them to be separated into distinct
SPECIES. They all have some points of construction in common; and,
therefore, they are classified together as five species of a GENUS—the genus
Felis.
Then consider the figure and colour of a hyæna, and of a civet, and
study their internal anatomy, and it will be found that although there are
differences between them which are sufficient to necessitate the placing of
the hyænas in one genus (Hyæna), and the civets (Viverra) in another; yet
the genera are closely united or allied, in consequence of their possessing
many similarities.
On comparing the genus Felis with the genera Hyæna and Viverra, it
will be noticed that the last two resemble each other more than they do the
first, and thus two FAMILIES are formed—one the Felina, to comprehend the
genus Felis; and another the Viverrina, to include the genera of hyænas and
the civets. But the slight resemblance between these families is sufficient to
cause them to be grouped in an ORDER which is called Carnivora, or that of
carnivorous beasts.
Again, the Monkeys and Sloths do not resemble each other in shape and
internal construction sufficiently to be placed in the same order even, but

they and the Carnivora, and many other animals, suckle their young. They
may, therefore, be separated, in a classification, from other animals which
fly and lay eggs, and do not suckle: as the birds. The Birds form one CLASS,
and the Mammalia, or animals that suckle their young, form another. Other
Classes are formed by the Reptiles, Amphibia, Fishes, etc.
All the animals of these numerous Classes have a back-bone; but if we
examine a nautilus, a snail, a beetle, a worm, a coral, or an animalcule,
nothing like an internal skeleton made up of bones, some of which are
placed inside the back, can be discovered. Hence all the animals can be
arranged into two SUB-KINGDOMS, those with and those without back-bones,
or the Vertebrata and the Invertebrata. (The name vertebrata is taken from
the Latin word vertebra, which means a turning-joint in the body, or a back-
bone.) Those are the sub-kingdoms of the animal KINGDOM, which is so
called in contradistinction to the kingdom of plants.
It must be remembered, however, that the best classification is but an
attempt of a finite understanding to arrange the infinitely variable things of
Nature. It is but an artificial and arbitrary arrangement which is necessary
for study: for were the whole truth before us, there would be no
classification which would depend on marked differences in shape and
internal construction. Were the figures and anatomy of every animal that
has lived, and of every creature which is now living on the globe, placed
before us, the gaps which enable one genus to be separated from another
would be filled up, and even species would cease to be distinguished. But,
in spite of the artificial nature of the classifications, there is this to be said
of them: that they give some faint indications of the philosophy of creation.
The differences and resemblances of animals relate to structures of the body
which have been inherited from creatures that lived in the remote past; and
we glean this when it is known that the young unborn of one genus
resembles the old and fully-formed creatures of kinds belonging to other
classes which preceded it in the history of the globe, and when it is shown
by the microscope that some of the parts of the bodies of the most
insignificant animals of the invertebrate sub-kingdom resemble those of the
most gifted of animals.
A classification thus opens out a little of the scheme of Nature, and it
proves that the resemblances and differences of animals are not matters of
chance, but that there is a law which has produced them. Such a law, yet

perhaps not fully comprehended, is Man’s idea of the action of the will of
the Divine Creator.

CASSELL’S NATURAL HISTORY.

GROUP OF APES AND MONKEYS, AND A LEMUR.

CLASS MAMMALIA.

ORDER I.—QUADRUMANA.—THE APES AND
MONKEYS.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION—THE MAN-SHAPED APES—1. THE GORILLA
(Troglodytes Gorilla).

The World of Monkeys, and its Division into great Groups—Distinction between the Old
World and New World Monkeys—Classification of Monkeys—THE GORILLA, Ancient
and Modern Stories about it—Investigations of Savage and Du Chaillu—General
Description—The Head, Brain, Teeth, Taste, Smell, and Voice—The Air Sacs, and Ear
—The Limbs and Muscles—Method of Climbing—Diet—Hunting the Gorilla—
Attempts to Capture Alive—A Tame Gorilla

IF one of each kind of the Apes and Monkeys which are now living on the
globe could be collected and placed in a large zoological garden, and if
those which lived in former ages, and whose skeletons have been
discovered by geologists, could be brought to life, and added to the whole,
they would certainly form a very amusing and remarkable assemblage.
What endless fun there would be, what scamperings, skirmishes, and
quarrels would take place; how they would grin, chatter, and pull tails all
the live-long day; and as evening began, how some, which had been quiet
spectators before, would commence howling, and how others would rush
about amongst their tired and sleepy companions, with noiseless bounds
until the return of daylight!

If each of these representative Monkeys could give an account of itself,
whence it had come, how it lived in its native forests and woods, and what
it did with itself all day, a most interesting and novel Natural History book
could be compiled, for only the histories of a few have been written, and
they are by no means always veracious. They would have come from Asia
and many of its islands, from Africa, from South America, and the Isthmus
to the north, and Europe would have sent one from the rocks of Gibraltar;
and yet, unless those of the same country had been properly introduced,
either by Dame Nature or by the chapter of accidents incident to such a very
unlikely meeting as we are imagining, they would not know many of their
fellows. They are exclusive in their habits, and their particular parks and
forests are limited in extent, and sometimes very much so. Of course, there
are some exceptions, and many kinds which roam over large countries, and
are even found in different islands, have gained the superior intelligence
and the ready affability and easiness of intercourse characteristic of the
cosmopolitan and traveller. Every kind of temper and capacity would be
shown; the Gorillas would probably be shy and cross, the Chimpanzees
lively and kind, the Baboons grumpy, the Spider Monkeys restless, and
most of the Macaques impudent and cunning—the result of a knowledge of
Apes and of many Monkeys. There would be every shade of colour, and of
shape and size; there would be many without tails, some with stumps, and
others with long tails of no great use except to afford temptation to the
mischievous; and not a few with fine large ones useful in the extreme, by
acting as a fifth limb. Many would have very human faces and sharp eyes,
others would look more like dogs, and fierce enough, and there would be
every variety of posture. Some would sit very well, others would go on all-
fours, and there would be others swinging with their long and strong arms,
and making tremendous jumps and bounds assisted in some by the
prehensile tail. Some would want one kind of fruit, and others different
kinds of vegetables, but only two or three tiny little ones would care much
about grubs and eggs. All would have the very best possible limbs for
climbing, grasping, picking, and stealing, and all would have good hands,
that is to say, fingers and thumbs and wrists, in front, and foot-hands, that is
to say, feet with a great thumb-like toe behind. In a general sense they
would all be four-handed or Quadrumanous, and this peculiarity would
distinguish them from any interlopers who might have got into the
assemblage unasked.

AMERICAN MONKEY, WITH PREHENSILE TAIL.

It may be doubted whether the most scientific of the scientific could do
much in the way of science at first with such varied and amusing creatures
before him; but the mind will attempt to compare and notice differences
under all sorts of circumstances, and therefore some general truths would
possibly be got at amidst all the noisy debates, divisions, and cheers and
counter-cheers of this Apes’ Parliament. There would be clearly two sides to
this house of representatives, the Americans and the Old World-ites, and the
most uncritical observer would separate them. It never entered into the
mind of a Monkey of the Old World to have a tail which would be as useful
as another leg and hand, and as manageable as if it had an eye at its tip—
that is an invention of Dame Nature in the American tropics, and is an
evident improvement. Now this tail is visible enough, and so is another
American peculiarity. The Monkeys there have a broad end to the nose, and
the openings of the nostrils look outwards, being separated by a thick
gristle; but those of the Old World have a thin gristle in the same place, and
the nostrils are not wide apart but open in front, more or less like those of
men and dogs. Here are, then, two “parties,” those with nostrils wide apart
with a wide and thick gristle—“broad noses,” called in scientific language

“Platyrhines”[1]; and those with the nostrils “looking downward,” or
“Catarhines.”[2]

ONE OF THE ANTHROPOMORPHA—THE CHIMPANZEE.

The great American section, or that of the broad-noses, is split up to a
certain extent, for all have not long prehensile tails, those of some being
short; and others have them feeble in strength and almost brushy with fur.
Here are, then, the means of readily knowing one set from another, so far as
these far travelled Monkeys are concerned.
The Old World section, with its close and downward-looking nostrils, at
first sight appears very united, but after a little noticing there seem to be
many different groups in it. Firstly, the commonest kinds make up for the
absence of a clinging tail, such as their American cousins have, by having
something which the Transatlantics would be glad of, namely, cheek

pouches—comfortable receptacles for nuts and such delicacies within the
mouth, where food can be kept as in a cupboard, until it is required, or can
be enjoyed in safety. These are the valuable properties of many of the
smaller African tribes. Then they also have, in the absence of soft clothes
and comfortable chairs to sit upon, fur or hair and a natural hardness or
“callosity,” or seat, which does not wear out, and which is often strangely
coloured. Another group has no cheek pouches, but it possesses the
callosities, and these less favoured creatures come mainly from Asia and the
great islands, and only a few from Africa.
Finally, the most important group of the section consists of the large
Apes, with neither tails, callosities, nor cheek pouches, but having very
man-like features; for instance, the great Troglodytes, Chimpanzees, and
Orangs, the first two from Africa, and the last from the great Asiatic islands
and the mainland.

ONE OF THE CYNOMORPHA—THE BABOON.

These tribes could be, with more study (especially if the merry company
were broken up by the anatomist taking them one by one and dissecting
them), divided over and over again, and separated into kinds or species,
which would not, however, always tally with the corresponding
arrangement of the naturalist, who would go by the skin and the outside of
the animals.
One thing would be quite clear to every one, and that is that some of the
creatures greatly resemble man at first sight, and that although this likeness
diminishes with study, still there is a group, which deserves the title of the
“man-shaped.” Others form a group which go usually on all fours, looking
like dogs, more or less, and they are the “dog-shaped,” but they of course
retain the more or less man-like peculiarities which characterise the whole
of the Monkeys.
Hence, after all these divisions and differences and resemblances have
been mastered, it would be found that the noisy assemblage could be
arranged as follows:—
1.—CATARHINES.—Old World Monkeys, man-shaped and dog-shaped.
2.—PLATYRHINES.—New World Monkeys.
The first section, the Catarhines, may be divided into the man-shaped,
or in the Greek the Anthropomorpha, and the dog-shaped, or the
Cynomorpha.
Or they may be arranged as those, with: 1, cheek pouches and
callosities, for instance, the Baboons; 2, those with callosities only, the
Monkeys; and 3, those without either, and without a tail, the Apes.
The second section, or the Platyrhines, may be divided into those: 1,
with prehensile tails; and 2, those with the tails not prehensile; and 3, those
whose tail is furry.
This great array of manikins (whence they get their name of Monkey—
the word homunculus, “a sorry little fellow,” having possibly something to
do with it) is formed by creatures next to man, the highest in the scale of
animals. They could be very readily distinguished from all others, were it
not for the existence of a group of beings which resemble them in some
particulars. These are the next lowest in the scale, and they have thumbs on
the hands and thumb-toes on the feet, but their fur is woolly, and they are

cat-like in shape. They are called the Lemurs, or by some zoologists “Half
Apes.” These Lemurs only resemble in a slight degree some of the
Monkeys of the New World, but they are more like them than any other
animals, and therefore are classified with them.

GROUP OF LEMURS. (From the Transactions of the Zoological Society.)

The order of beings to which these various creatures belong is known
by the name of “Primates,” which implies the rank they hold in the scale of
creation. Man stands first, very distinct in his intellectual powers and
spiritual gifts from the most intelligent of the Quadrumana and as much
superior to them in his construction. Then comes the world of Monkeys, the
“man-shaped” at the head, and the little marmosets, with furry tails, at the
bottom of the array, and linked on to these are the Half Apes or Lemurs.
They all form a great order of the animal kingdom which stands first and at
the head of all other orders of the animal world.
But what would the old Monkeys whose bones have been dug out of
strata which are older than the Himalayan mountains and the Alps say could
they visit such a collection as that suggested? They would recognise their
fellow-monkeys, but would look upon them as pigmies in size. They would

be few in number, for though Monkeys go the way of all flesh very rapidly,
skeletons of them are very rarely found, so rarely indeed that many Indians
believe that the other Monkeys bury them. The fact is, that there are plenty
of Jackals, to say nothing of birds of prey, ready to snap up a dead, dying,
or invalid Ape, and to turn its protoplasm into their own. Some few tumble
into holes, and may be preserved there, and probably that was how the old
bones were hidden up. The old kinds resembled the new more or less, but
for the most part those which have been carefully examined were larger
than the corresponding modern species. They were as great Apes in their
nature as are the present, and had this advantage, that their roaming ground
was wider, for they lived in Europe as well as in the countries where their
modern representatives are found. Nevertheless, even in those old days the
Catarhines were kept to the Old World, and the Platyrhines enlivened the
American forests alone.

1. FOOT AND HAND OF A MONKEY. 2. A. CATARHINE MONKEY. 3. A. PLATYRHINE
MONKEY. 4. MONKEY WITH CHEEK POUCHES.

In the great order of the Primates, after man, stand the man-shaped or
anthropomorphous[3] Apes, the Great Tail-less. They are inhabitants of

equatorial Africa, and of the large Asiatic islands and the adjacent mainland,
and first and foremost amongst them is

THE GORILLA.

Africa, to the south of the Great Desert, has always been a country of
wonders, and highly attractive to imaginative and restless men; and its dark
population, so ignorant and superstitious, has, from its love of the
marvellous, shadowed the truth with much mystery. Hence, travellers in
those tropical regions, which are so fatal to Europeans, have from the
earliest times told of the man-like creatures they had heard of and
sometimes seen; and they have associated them in the equatorial part of the
continent with human dwarfs, pigmies, and monsters. For centuries these
degraded human races have been sought after, and now whilst it is admitted
that dwarfed men exist, it has come to light that most of the stories which
led to the belief in their hideous associates were derived from the existence
of large man-like Apes—creatures of dread to the natives—whose traditions
are full of credulous anecdotes about them. Hidden in the recesses of vast
forests, where the silence of nature is intense, and moving with great
activity, where men can hardly follow, these animals acquired most doubtful
reputations, and their ugly personal appearance, so suggestive of violence,
was magnified in every way in the eyes of the timid natives.
So dreaded were the Apes, and so environed were they with a
superstitious mystery, that Europeans had travelled and traded close to their
haunts for centuries before one of them was seen by any other eyes than
those of the timid negroes. Many stories about them had long been told, and
indeed some of them are as old as the days of the Carthaginians. For
instance, Hanno, a Carthaginian, was ordered to sail on a voyage of
discovery round Africa some centuries before Christ, the exact date not
being fixed; and he sailed and rowed in his galleys out of the present Strait
of Gibraltar, and coasted southwards until he came to the great bay,
probably somewhere about the Gaboon River, near the equator, in Western
Africa. It is stated in the history of his voyage:—
“On the third day, having sailed from thence, passing the streams of fire,
we came to a bay called the Horn of the South. In the recess there was an
island like the first, having a lake, and in this there was another island full

of wild men. But much the greater part of them were women with hairy
bodies, whom the interpreters called Gorillas. But, pursuing them, we were
not able to take the men; they all escaped, being able to climb the
precipices, and defended themselves with pieces of rock. But these women
(female Gorillas), who bit and scratched those who led them, were not
willing to follow. However, having killed them, we flayed them, and
conveyed the skins to Carthage, for we did not sail any further, as
provisions began to fail.”
Probably the streams of fire were a part of a volcanic eruption. Written
in the Periplus or voyage of Hanno this story is thoroughly African, and
might have been the model upon which hundreds of later ones have been
formed, for it is a combination of the novel in nature, and of what is true
and false. It is curious that a commander of so civilised an expedition, and a
man whose eyes had been accustomed to the grace of Grecian statuary and
to the beauty of his own countrywomen, should have mistaken a Gorilla for
one of the fair sex; and, moreover, it is possible that from the mounting of
the rocks, and the flinging of stones by the males, the whole were Baboons.
Nevertheless this is the oldest record of the name which is associated with
the most interesting of modern discoveries, and it accounts for many stories
which were kept floating in the thoughts of successive generations of
travellers.
Gradually the truth came forth, but not until many Europeans had
wandered in Gorilla Land. One Andrew Bartlett was an English sailor, who
got caught by the Portuguese for some reason or other, and was kept a
prisoner in Angola, which is situated nearly ten degrees south of the line,
and near the great virgin forests, which are the haunts of the Gorilla and
Chimpanzee, and his “strange adventures” were published in 1625, by
Purchas, in “His Pilgrimages.”
Battel speaks of two monsters which excited the fears of the natives.
“The greatest is called Pongo, in their language, and the lesser is called
Engeco. This Pongo is in all proportion like a man, but that he is more like a
giant in stature than a man: for he is very tall and hath a man’s face, hollow
eyed, with long haire upon his brows. His bodie is full of haire, but not very
thick, and it is of a brownish colour. He differeth not from man but in his
legs, for they have no calfe. He goeth always upon his legs, and carrieth his
hands clasped on the nape of his necke, when he goeth upon the ground.

They sleepe in the trees, and build shelter for the raine. They feed upon the
fruit that they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eat no kind of
flesh. They cannot speak, and have no understanding more than a beast. The
people of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods, make fires when
they sleepe in the night: and in the morning when they are gone, Pongo will
come and sit about the fire till it goeth out, for they have no understanding
to lay the wood together. They goe many together and kill many negroes
that travaile in the woods. Many times they fall upon elephants which come
to feed where they may be, and so beat them with their clubbed fists and
pieces of wood that they will runne roaring away from them. These Pongos
are never taken alive, because they are so strong ten men cannot hold one of
them; but they take many of their young ones with poisoned arrows. The
young Pongo hangeth on its mother’s belly with its hands clasped about her,
so that when any of the country people kill the females, they take the young
which hangs fast upon his mother. When they die amongst themselves, they
cover the dead with great heaps of boughs and wood, which are commonly
found in the forests.”
The Pongo appears to be the Gorilla, and Battel tells much truth about
it, mixed up with absurd fiction, whilst the Engeco, or as it is called by the
natives of the Gaboon, the enche-eko, is the Chimpanzee.
Early in this century, in 1819, Bowdich says, in a description of a
mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, “that the favourite and most
extraordinary subject of conversation when in the Gaboon River was the
Ingena. This is an animal like the Orang-Utan, but much exceeding it in
size, being five feet high and four feet across the shoulders. Its paw was
said to be even more disproportioned in its breadth, and one blow of it is
said to be fatal. It is commonly seen by the natives when they travel to
Kaybe, lurking in the bush to destroy passengers, not to eat them, for it
feeds principally on wild honey which abounds.”

MALE GORILLA.

Sometimes, the natives assert, when a company of villagers are moving
rapidly through the shades of the forest, they become aware of the presence
of the formidable Ape by the sudden disappearance of one of their
companions, who is hoisted up into a tree, uttering, perhaps, only a short
choking sob. In a few minutes he falls to the ground a strangled corpse, for

the animal, watching his opportunity, has let down his huge hind-hand and
seized the passing negro by the neck with a vice-like grip, and has drawn
him up into the branches, dropping him when life and struggling have
ceased.

FEMALE GORILLA AND YOUNG. (From the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London.)

The missionaries, when they were established in the Gaboon region,
found that all along the coast the Gorillas were believed by the natives to be
human beings, members of their own race degenerated. Some natives who
had been a little civilised, and who thought a little more than the rest, did
not acknowledge this relationship, but considered them as embodied spirits,
the belief in the transmigration of souls being prevalent. They said that the
enche-eko, or Chimpanzee, has the spirit of a coastman, being less fierce
and more intelligent than the enge-ena, or Gorilla, which has that of a
bushman. The majority, however, fully believed them to be men, and
seemed to be unaffected by the arguments offered to disprove this fancy;

and this was especially true of the tribes in the immediate vicinity of the
locality. They believed them to be literally wild men of the woods.
Nevertheless, they were eaten when they could be got, and their flesh, with
that of the Chimpanzee and other Monkeys, formed and still forms a
prominent place in the bill of fare.
Impressed thus with a belief in their kinship and of their ferocity, it was
not surprising that live Gorillas could not be obtained by European
travellers. Even a bold and skilful hunter of the elephant, when pressed to
bring in one, declared he would not do it for a mountain of gold.
In 1847 the first sight of a part of a Gorilla was obtained by an
American missionary; it was a skull, and its shape struck him as being so
extraordinary that he believed the natives were correct in attributing it to the
much-talked-of Ape of whose ferocity and strength he had heard so much.
Collecting others, he at last handed them over to a fellow labourer, Dr.
Savage, who possessed much anatomical knowledge. Every attempt was
made to obtain even a dead Gorilla, but without satisfactory results. Savage
lived for years in the neighbourhood of the Gaboon river, and not only
gradually accumulated a fine collection of the bones of the great Ape, which
he at first thought was the Orang-Utan, and which he subsequently
described as the Gorilla, but also put together a history of its habits and
aspect as gleaned from the natives. He was in the heart of Gorilla Land,
which may be said to extend from ten to fifteen degrees of latitude on each
side of the equator. It is bounded by the sea on the west, and extends to an
unknown distance to the east, being watered by the Gaboon, Danger, and
Fernandez Vas rivers. Mountainous far from the coast, and very undulating
everywhere, it consists of dense forest, wild jungle, and open places.
Traversed as this country is by navigable rivers which are visited by traders,
it struck this observer that it was indeed remarkable that the Gorilla should
have been so unknown to civilised men; but he was soon impressed with the
dread the natives had of it, and also with the fact that it sought the remoter
parts of the neighbouring woods. From the descriptions of the natives, who
never attempted to interfere with the Gorilla except in self-defence, its
height is above five feet, and it is disproportionately broad across the
shoulders. It is covered with coarse black hair, which greatly resembles that
of the Chimpanzee; with age it becomes grey, and this fact has given rise to
the report that there are more kinds than one. Resembling a huge Ape in

shape, with a great body, comparatively short legs with large hind-thumbs,
its bulk is considerable, and its arms, reaching further down than in man,
enable it to grasp and climb well. It does not possess a tail, and the head has
a wide and long black face, a very deep cheek, great brows over the deeply-
seated hazel eyes, a flat nose, and a wide mouth with very strong teeth. The
top of the head has a crest of longish hair, and elsewhere it is exceedingly
thick and short. The belly is very large. From inquiry he ascertained that
when walking, their gait is shuffling, and the body, which is never upright
like that of man, moves from side to side in going along. Usually it walks
by resting the hands on the ground and then bringing the legs between
them, and swinging the body forward. They live in bands, and the females
generally exceed the males in number. They are exceedingly ferocious,
never running away from man, and the few that have been captured were
killed by elephant hunters and native traders as they came suddenly upon
them whilst passing through the woods.
It was said, at this time, by the natives,
that the Gorilla makes a sleeping-place
like a hammock, by connecting the
branches of a sheltered and thickly-leaved
part of a tree by means of the long, tough,
slender stems of parasitic plants, and lining
it with the dried broad fronds of fern, or
with long grass. This hammock-like abode
may be seen at different heights, from ten
to forty feet from the ground, but there is
never more than one such nest in a tree.
They avoid the abodes of man, but are
most commonly seen in the months of
September, October, and November, after
FRONT VIEW OF THE SKULL OF the negroes have gathered in their outlying
THE GORILLA. rice-crops, and have returned from the
“bush” to their valleys. So observed, they
are described to be usually in pairs, or if more, the addition consists of a
few young ones of different ages and apparently of one family. The Gorilla
is not gregarious. The parents may be seen sitting on a branch resting their
backs against the tree trunk munching fruit, whilst the young Gorillas are at
play, leaping and swinging from branch to branch with hoots or harsh cries

of boisterous mirth. This rural felicity, however, has its objectionable sides,
for occasionally, if not invariably, the old male, if he be seen in quest of
food, is usually armed with a short stick, which the negroes aver to be the
weapon with which he attacks his chief enemy the elephant. Not that the
elephant directly or intentionally injures the Gorilla, but deriving its
subsistence from the same source, the Ape regards the great proboscidian as
a hostile intruder. When, therefore, he sees the elephant pulling down and
wrenching off the branches of a favourite tree, the Gorilla, stealing along
the bough, strikes the sensitive proboscis of the elephant with a violent
blow of his club, and drives off the startled giant trumpeting shrilly with
pain. In passing from one tree to another the Gorilla is said to walk semi-
erect with the aid of his club, but with a waddling and awkward gait; when
without a stick, he has been seen to walk as a man, with his hands clasped
across the back of his head, instinctively balancing its forward position. If
the Gorilla be surprised and approached, whatever the ground may be, he
betakes himself on all-fours, dropping the stick, and makes his way very
rapidly, with a kind of sidelong gallop, resting on the front knuckles, to the
nearest tree. There he meets his pursuer, especially if his family is near and
requiring his defence. No negro willingly approaches the tree in which the
male Gorilla keeps guard, even with a gun. The experienced negro does not
make the attack, but reserves his fire in self-defence. The enmity of the
Gorilla to the whole negro race, male and female, is uniformly attested.
Thus, when young men of the Gaboon tribe make excursions into the
forests in quest of ivory, the enemy they most dread to meet is the Gorilla.
If they have come unawares too near him with his family, he does not, like
the lion, sulkily retreat, but comes rapidly to the attack, swinging down to
the lower branches, and clutching at the nearest foe. The hideous aspect of
the animal, with his green eyes flashing with rage, is heightened by the skin
over the orbits and eyebrows being drawn rapidly backwards and forwards,
with the hair erected, producing a horrible and fiendish scowl. If fired at,
and not mortally hit, the Gorilla closes at once upon his assailant, and
inflicts most dangerous if not deadly wounds, with his sharp and powerful
tusks. The commander of a Bristol trader once saw a negro at the Gaboon
frightfully mutilated from the bite of a Gorilla, from which he had
recovered. Another negro exhibited to the same voyager a gun barrel bent
and partly flattened by a wounded Gorilla in its death struggle.

The strength of the Gorilla is such as to make him a match for a lion,
whose strength his own nearly rivals. Over the Leopard, invading the lower
branches of his dwelling-place, he will gain an easier victory; and the huge
canine teeth, with which only the male Gorilla is furnished, doubtless have
been given to him for defending his mate and offspring.
As the appearance and some of the movements of the Gorilla are very
man-like, some of the natives consider that the souls of men have entered
into their bodies, and hence many apologies are made for some of their
tricks and reported doings. Moreover, from this belief some of their skulls
are made objects of fetish worship, and are marked with broad stripes of red
paint, crossed by a white one. These were the stories told to Savage.
On returning to America, Savage investigated the parts of the skeletons
he had obtained, and compared them with those of the Chimpanzee. Owen,
in England, having received some corresponding specimens, continued the
investigation, and all were agreed in deciding that the Gorilla was a species
in itself, differing from the Chimpanzee, but sufficiently like it to be
connected with it in a genus. The Gorilla was termed Troglodytes Gorilla,
and the Chimpanzee, which will be noticed in the next chapter, kept its
name of Troglodytes niger. The word Troglodytes was very ill chosen, and
it does not refer in any way to the nature or habits of the animals. It was
taken from τρωγλοδύται, the name of an Ethiopian tribe who dwell in holes
or caves. The native name is Ngina.
The descriptions of the habits and anatomy of the Gorilla, fragmentary
as they were, excited great interest in the minds of many travellers, and
especially in that of Du Chaillu, who left America in 1855, determined to
explore Gorilla Land, and to obtain some of the great Apes, dead or alive.
He first met with the Gorilla amongst some beautiful scenery, near the
Sierra del Crystal, at the head waters of the Ntambounay, a stream which
runs into the Muni or Danger River. Close to some rapids down which the
torrent was rushing with great velocity amongst huge boulders, and sending
its spray up to the tops of the highest trees of the banks, was a deserted
village, and amongst its ruins were some broken-down sugar-canes. Here
and there the canes had been taken down, and torn up by the roots, and they
were lying about in fragments, which had evidently been chewed. He
writes:—“I knew that there were fresh tracks of the Gorilla, and joy filled

my heart; they (the native hunters) now looked at each other in silence, and
muttered, Nguyla, which is as much as to say in Nepongwe, Ngina, or as we
say, Gorilla. We followed these traces, and presently came to the footprints
of the so-long desired animal. It was the first time I had ever seen these
footprints, and my sensations were indescribable. Here was I now, it
seemed, on the point of meeting face to face that monster of whose ferocity,
strength, and cunning, the natives had told me so much; an animal scarce
known to the civilised world, and which no white man before had hunted.
My heart beat till I feared its loud pulsations would alarm the Gorilla, and
my feelings were excited to a painful degree. By the tracks it was easy to
know that there must have been several Gorillas in company. We prepared
at once to follow them. The women were terrified, poor things, and we left
them a good escort of two or three men to take care of them, and reassure
them. Then the rest of us looked once more carefully at our guns, for the
Gorilla gives you no time to re-load, and woe to him whom he attacks. We
were armed to the teeth. My men were remarkably silent, as if they were
going on an expedition of more than usual risk; for the male Gorilla is
literally king of the African forest. He and the crested lion of Mount Atlas
are the two fiercest and strongest beasts of the continent. The lion of South
Africa cannot compare with either for strength or courage. I knew that we
were about to pit ourselves against an animal which even the leopard of
these mountains fears, and which perhaps has driven the lion out of his
territory; for the king of beasts so numerous elsewhere in Africa is never
met in the land of the Gorilla. We descended a hill, crossed a stream on a
fallen log, and presently approached some huge boulders of granite.
Alongside of one lay an immense dead tree, and about this we saw many
evidences of the very recent presence of the Gorillas. Our approach was
very cautious: we were divided into parties. We were to surround the granite
block, behind which the animals were supposed to be hiding, and suddenly
I was startled by a strange discordant, half-human, devilish cry, and beheld
four young Gorillas running toward the deep forests. We fired, but hit
nothing. Then we rushed on in pursuit, but they knew the woods better than
we. Once I caught a glimpse of one of the animals again, but an intervening
tree spoiled my mark, and I did not fire, but ran till we were exhausted, but
in vain, and the alert beasts made their escape.” As the hunters sat round
their fire in the evening, before going to sleep, the adventure of the day was
talked over, and of course some very tough yarns and stories were told

about the Gorillas, most of which ought to have put this traveller on his
guard, and impressed him that the greater part of the ferocity and the lion-
like courage of the new animal were derived from the imaginations of a
very superstitious and not over-courageous race of men. They were great
believers in witchcraft, and they believed that many men whose names they
mentioned, and who are dead, had their spirits now dwelling in Gorillas.
However, Du Chaillu, a few days afterwards, started on a hunt which had a
more satisfactory termination than the last. He and the rest got on the track
of an old male, and suddenly as they were creeping along in silence, which
made a heavy breath seem loud and distinct, the woods were at once filled
with the tremendous barking roar of the Gorilla. Then the underbush
swayed rapidly just a-head, and presently before them stood an immense
male. He had gone through the jungle on all-fours, but when he saw the
party he raised himself and looked them boldly in the face. “It stood about a
dozen yards from us, and was a sight I think I never shall forget. Nearly six
feet high (he proved four inches shorter), with immense body, huge chest,
and great muscular arms, with fiercely glaring large deep gray eyes, and a
hellish expression of face, which seemed to me like some nightmare vision;
there stood before us the king of the African forest. He was not afraid of us.
He stood there and beat his breast with his huge fists till it resounded like an
immense bass drum, which is their mode of offering defiance; sometimes
giving vent to roar after roar. The roar of the Gorilla is the most singular
and awful noise heard in these African woods. It begins with a sharp bark
like an angry dog, then glides into a deep bass roll, which literally and
closely resembles the roll of distant thunder along the sky, for which I have
sometimes been tempted to take it when I did not see the animal. His eyes
began to flash fiercely, for we stood motionless on the defensive, and the
crest of short hair which stands on his forehead began to twitch rapidly up
and down, while his powerful fangs were shown as he again sent forth a
tremendous roar. He advanced a few steps, then stopped to utter that
hideous roar again; advanced again, and finally stopped when at the
distance of about six yards from us, and then, just as he began another of his
roars, beating his breast with rage, we fired and killed him. With a groan
which had something terribly human in it, and yet was full of brutishness,
he fell forward on his face. The body shook convulsively for a few minutes,
the limbs moved about in a struggling way, and then all was quiet; death
had done its work, and I had leisure to examine the huge body. It proved to

be five feet eight inches high, and the muscular development of the arms
and breast showed the immense strength it had possessed.”
Du Chaillu once had a capital view of some Gorillas at their meal. News
having come that Gorillas had been recently seen in the neighbourhood of a
plantation on the Fernandez Vas river, just south of the equator and not far
from the West African coast, he got up early and went into it. He writes:
“The plantation was a large one, and situated on very broken ground,
surrounded by the virgin forest. It was a lovely morning; the sky was almost
cloudless, and all around was as still as death, except the slight rustling of
the tree tops moved by the gentle land breeze. When I reached the place, I
had just to pick my way through the maze of tree-stumps and half-burned
logs by the side of a field of cassada.

FAMILY OF GORILLAS.

“I was going quietly along the borders of this when I heard in the grove
of plantation trees towards which I was walking a great crushing noise like
the breaking of trees. I immediately hid myself behind a bush, and was soon
gratified with the sight of a female Gorilla; but before I had time to notice
its movements, a second and third emerged from the masses of colossal
foliage; at length, no less than four came in view. They were all busily
engaged in tearing down the larger trees. One of the females had a young
one following her. I had an excellent opportunity of watching the
movements of the impish-looking band. The shaggy hides, the protuberant

abdomens, the hideous features of these strange creatures, whose forms so
nearly resemble man, made up a picture like a vision in a morbid dream. In
destroying a tree, they first grasped the base of the stem with one of their
feet, and then with their powerful arms pulled it down, a matter of not much
difficulty with so loosely-formed a stem as that of the plantain. They then
set upon the juicy fruit of the tree at the bases of the leaves, and devoured it
with great voracity. While eating, they made a kind of chuckling noise,
expressive of contentment. Many trees they destroyed, apparently out of
pure mischief. Now and then they stood still and looked around. Once or
twice they seemed on the point of starting off in haste, but recovered
themselves, and continued their work. Gradually they got nearer to the edge
of the dark forest, and finally disappeared.” On the next day he was
carrying a light gun, having given his heavy double-barrelled rifle to a boy
to carry, when in a deep hollow, flanked with sugar-cane, he saw on the
slope opposite to him a gigantic Gorilla standing erect, and walking directly
towards him. Pointing his rifle, he turned to look for the boy, but he had
seen the Gorilla and bolted forthwith. The huge beast stared at Du Chaillu
for about two minutes, and then without uttering any noise moved off to the
shade of the forest, running nimbly on his hands and feet.
This running movement is performed principally by the arms, for the
animal places the backs of its knuckles on the ground, straightens its
elbows, and swings the huge body and short legs so that they come in front.
Then the feet support the weight of the body until the knuckles are put on
the ground in advance.
Anxious to possess some adult Gorillas, Du Chaillu offered rewards to
the native hunters, and on one occasion they brought in three live ones, one
being full-grown. This was a large adult female, who was bound hand and
foot, and with it was her female child, screaming terribly, and the third was
a vigorous young male, who was also tightly bound. The female had been
ingeniously secured by the negroes to a strong stick, the wrists being bound
to the upper part, and the ankles to the lower, so that she could not reach to
tear the cords with her teeth. It was dark when they were brought in, and the
scene was wild and strange in the extreme. “The fiendish countenances of
the Calibanish trio, one of them distorted by pain, for the mother Gorilla
was severely wounded, were lit up by the ruddy glare of native torches.”
The young male was secured by a chain, and Du Chaillu gave him the name

of Tom. His feet and hands were untied, and he immediately showed his
want of gratitude by rushing at his possessor, screaming with all his might;
but the chain was happily made fast, and he did no harm. The old mother
Gorilla was in an unfortunate plight. She had an arm broken, and a wound
in the chest, besides being dreadfully beaten about the head; she groaned
and roared many times during the night, probably from pain. She lived until
the next day, her moanings were more frequent in the morning, and they
gradually became weaker as her life ebbed out. Her death was like that of a
human being, and her child clung to her to the last, and tried to obtain milk
from her breast after she was dead. The young one was kept alive for three
days on goat’s milk, but it died on the fourth day. The young male would
not be photographed, for pointing the camera at him made the irascible little
thing a small demon, but after some attempts his likeness was taken. These
Gorillas were caught on a promontory which runs into the sea like a spit. A
woman had seen “two sets of Gorillas on it with young ones, and the
natives assembled, and armed themselves with great spears and axes,
forming a line across the spit, advancing towards its extremity. They made a
good deal of noise, and bewildered the Gorillas, who were shot down or
beaten in their endeavours to escape. There were eight females together, but
no large male.” Du Chaillu, on hearing this, modified his opinion respecting
the solitary habit of the animal, and he subsequently obtained proofs that
they roam in bands of from five to ten. It is true, however, that when
Gorillas become aged, they seem to be more solitary, and live in pairs, or as
in the case of old males, quite alone. He was assured by the negroes that
solitary and aged Gorillas are sometimes seen almost white, for the hair
becomes grizzled with age. Evidently the animal migrates here and there in
his restricted district during certain seasons, and they search for a little
yellow berry called “rubino,” which grows on a tree resembling the African
teak; and also two other fruits, one like the nectarine in size, and of the
colour of the peach, but not having the rich bloom, and the other like a
plum. The same traveller came suddenly on a band of Gorillas in a forest;
“a whole group was on a tree hidden by the dense foliage. They bolted off,
making the thinner boughs bend with their weight, and an old male,
apparently the guardian of the flock, made a bold stand, and stared at him
through an opening. As soon as voices were heard, the shaggy Ape roared a
cry of alarm, scrambled to the ground through the entangled lianas that
were around the tree trunk, and soon disappeared into the jungle.”

Having had, then, so many
opportunities of seeing Gorillas alive and
dead, Du Chaillu, of course, added largely
to the knowledge of their general shape
and habits, and obtained skins for stuffing,
and bones for the anatomists. Five
specimens were sent over by him to
England, and great discussions took place;
some naturalists asserting that the ferocity
and courage of the great Ape were
imaginary, and others believing in the truth
of Du Chaillu, whose only fault was over-
FACE OF THE GORILLA.
sensational writing, and who strenuously
denied many of the native stories. Then the
anatomists had a great quarrel about the brain of the creature, and handled
each other very severely. Of the nature of the outside of the Gorilla there
could be no doubt, fortunately, for there are the stuffed skins and bones to
be seen, and an examination of those in the national collection will prove
how closely Savage must have questioned the natives who gave him
reliable information, and how little can be added to his description. Du
Chaillu says that in length the adult Gorillas vary as much as men, and
believes that the tallest are six feet two inches in height, but that the average
is from five feet two inches to five feet eight inches. The females are
smaller, or have a lighter frame, their height averaging about four feet six
inches. The colour of the skin in the Gorilla, young as well as adult, is
intense black, so far as the face, breast, and palms of the hands are
concerned. The fur of a grown, but not aged specimen, is iron-gray, and the
individual hairs are ringed with alternate stripes of black and gray. It is long
on the arms, and slopes downwards from the shoulder to the elbow, and
upwards from the wrist to it. The head is covered with reddish-brown hair,
which is short, and reaches the short neck. The chest is bare in the adults,
and thinly covered with hair in young males. In the female the breast is
bare, and the hair elsewhere is black with a red tinge, but it is not ringed as
in the male; moreover, the reddish crown which covers the scalp of the male
is not apparent in the female till she has almost become full grown. The
eyes are deeply sunken: the immense overhanging long ridge giving the
face the expression of a constant savage scowl. The mouth is wide, and the

lips are sharply cut, exhibiting no red on the edges, as in the human face.
The jaws are of tremendous weight and power. The huge eye-teeth or
canines, of the male, which are fully exhibited when, in his rage, he draws
back his lips and shows the red colour of the inside of his mouth, lend
additional ferocity to his aspect. In the female these teeth are smaller. The
almost total absence of neck, which gives the head the appearance of being
set into the shoulders, is due to the backward position of the joints which fix
the head to the spine, and this allows the chin to hang over the top of the
front of the chest. The brain-case is low and compressed, and its lofty top
ridge causes the profile of the skull to describe an almost straight line from
the back part, or occiput, to the ridge over the brow. The immense
development of the muscles, which arise from this ridge, and the
corresponding size of the jaw, are evidences of the great strength of the
animal. The eyebrows are thin, but not well-defined, and are almost lost in
the hair of the scalp. The eyelashes are thin also. The eyes are wide apart;
and the ears, which are on a line with them, are smaller than those of man,
but very much like his. In a front view of the face the nose is flat, but
somewhat prominent—more so than in any other Ape; this is on account of
a slightly projecting nose-bone, very unusual in Apes. The chest is of great
capacity; the shoulders being exceedingly broad. The abdomen is of
immense size, very prominent, and rounded at the sides. The front limbs
have a prodigious muscular development, and are very long, extending
nearly as low as the knees. The forearm is nearly of uniform size from the
wrist to the elbow, and, indeed, the great length of the arms, and the
shortness of the legs, form one of the chief differences between it and man.
The arms are not long when compared with the trunk, but they are so in
comparison with the legs. These are short, and decrease in size from below
the knee to the ankle, having no calf. The hands, especially in the male, are
of immense size, strong-boned, and thick; the fingers are short and large,
the circumference of the middle finger at the first joint being five and a half
inches in some Gorillas. The skin on the back of the fingers, near the
middle, is callous, and very thick, which shows that the most usual mode of
progression of the animal is on all-fours, and resting on the knuckles. The
thumb is short, and not half so thick as the forefinger; and the hand is hairy
as far as the division of the fingers, which are covered with short thin hairs.
The palm of the hand is naked, callous, and intensely black. The nails are
black, and shaped like those of man, but are smaller in proportion, and

project very slightly beyond the ends of the fingers. They are thick and
strong, and always seem much worn. The hand of the Gorilla is almost as
wide as it is long, and in this it approaches nearer to that of man than any of
the other Apes. The foot is proportionally wider than in man; the sole is
callous, and intensely black, and looks somewhat like a giant hand of
immense power and grasp. The transverse wrinkles show the frequency and
freedom of movement of the two joints of the great toe-thumb, proving that
they have a power of grasp. The middle toe, or third, is longer than the
second and fourth, and this is unlike the foot in man. The toes are divided
into three groups, so to speak; inside the great toe, outside the little toe, and
the three others partly united by a web. Du Chaillu thinks that in no other
animal is the foot so well adapted for the maintenance of the erect position,
and he erroneously believed that the Gorilla is much less of a tree-climber
than any other Ape. The foot in the Gorilla is certainly longer than the hand,
as in man. These descriptions are fairly correct, but it is necessary to
examine the results of the later writers on the subject, from whom we may
glean the following facts.

PALM OF THE FOOT OF YOUNG GORILLA. BACK OF THE HAND OF YOUNG GORILLA.
(From the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London.)

The Gorilla has a large head, and on looking at a stuffed specimen one
is at once struck with the width and length of the face, and the great
prominent brows immediately over the eyes. There appears to be no
forehead, for the head recedes rapidly backwards, and then comes a high
ridge of hair, in old males, running from before backwards on the top of the
scalp, and meeting another which is less prominent, and placed across the
back of the skull, from the back of one ear to that of the other. The animal
has the power of moving the flesh and skin which constitute the scalp freely
forwards and backwards, so that when it is in a rage its scowl is made all
the more threatening and ugly by its frowning and bringing down the hairy
ridge close to above the eyes. The hazel eyes are large, and they are
separated by a small prominent bridge belonging to the nose, the rest of
which is broad and flattened out. The jaws project forwards, and are long
and wide, the teeth being large and strong, and visible when uncovered by
the fleshy and rather hairy lips. The ears are small for the size of the head,
when they are compared with those of other Apes, and they as well as the
skin of the face are naked and dark.
Nature has been kinder to the females so far as beauty is concerned, for
they have less marked crests of hair, smaller brows, and shorter side teeth,
and therefore more amiable faces under all circumstances.
Of course the outside appearance of the head has much to do with the
skull beneath, and this has been very carefully studied by anatomists. As a
whole, the skull of a full-grown male Gorilla is larger than that of a man,
but it is lighter, although it appears to be more massive on account of its
being marked by great bony ridges or crests, which correspond with the
lines of hair on the top and back of the head, one being on the top like the
crest of a helmet, and the other crossing the back and reaching the other so
as to form a rude T shape. Careful measurement proves the great size of the
Gorilla’s skull as a whole, and that this is dependent mainly on the
dimensions of the bones of the face, the cavity for the brain being smaller
than that of man. But it does not appear at first very easy to explain how it
is that this massive-looking skull should be lighter than that of man. A
careful examination of the bones of the Gorilla’s skull explains the
difficulty, and in a very interesting manner.
The massive and solid look is given to it by the crests or ridges beneath
the hair already mentioned; they are of great use, for they give attachment

to very powerful muscles, especially to
those which move the lower jaw, and
enable the teeth to bite forcibly. The
surface of the bones of the head for a
certain depth is solid enough, but below
this solid layer there is a cellular
arrangement consisting of a network of
bone, with cavities communicating with
each other with the internal parts of the
ears and nose. Below this is solid bone
again. So that there are three layers, and
SIDE VIEW OF THE SKULL
the central one gives lightness and strength
OF GORILLA. to the whole; moreover, it protects the
brain under the skull from receiving
shocks during falls or blows by boughs.
When the skull receives a sharp blow, for instance, in front or behind, or
low down at the sides, the outer layer of solid bone is often cracked, and
even forced in. If there were no cellular layer, the tender brain would be
injured directly, but the network of bone and the large spaces amongst it
take off the jar from that important organ, and suffer the outer layer to be
pressed in without affecting the deeper structures. It must be a very hard
blow that can press the cellular layer in sufficiently to break through the
third layer, which is solid but thin. Very possibly the larger air spaces of the
cellular layer assist the senses of hearing and of smelling also.
There is another very strong bone connected with the skull, which feels
like a ridge, passing backward from the eye to the ear; and it has something
to do with the other ridges, for the muscles which are attached to them, and
which pass down to the lower jaw to give it great power of mastication, are
covered on the cheek by it. This cheek-bone forms a kind of arch, and gives
the great breadth to the upper part of the face of the animal.
In a front view of the skull of the male Gorilla the ridge or crest on the
top of the head stands up like a little peak; then over the eyes is the great
brow ridge, which seems to press the upper part of the cavity for the eye
(the orbit) flat, so that it is not round as in most animals, but rather square in
outline. These three sets of ridges, those of the upper and back part of the
brain case, that of the brow and those of the cheeks, so large and important,

are distinctive of the adult male animal, and a skull possessing them
belongs to the Gorilla and to no other animal.
The females and the young of both sexes have not the top ridges, and
the others are small in comparison with those of the male adults.
Clearly the ridges give strength to the head, muscular power to the jaws,
and what is of great importance to a large active animal, do not interfere
with the lightness of the strong skull.
The skull is hollow beneath the top and back ridges, and this space is
occupied by the brain and its investing membranes, and the nerves coming
from it, to supply the muscles of the face and head, the skin over them, and
the organs of special sense, such as the eye, the ear, and the nose. The space
is considerable, and for an Ape the Gorilla has a large brain. He has a large
body, very many muscles capable of complicated movement, and he can
see, hear, and smell admirably; and as the nerves which supply the
necessary energy for all this come from the great nervous centre, as the
brain is called, it must be of considerable size and complexity. Moreover, as
many of the motions and sensations of the Ape resemble those of man, the
brains of both will resemble each other to a certain extent. But all that part
of the brain which serves in a manner, as yet past our comprehension, to
assist the production of the high intelligence and moral powers of man, we
should expect not to find in the purely sensual animal, and the expectation
is realised. Again, although bone for bone, muscle for muscle, and blood-
vessel for blood-vessel, those of the great Ape and man may be compared
with wonderful exactitude; still man in relation to the Gorilla has a greater
power of elegance of movement, and of producing complicated muscular
efforts, and of employing many different muscles to produce a common
end, and therefore his nervous system must be all the more perfect. Thus,
the Ape cannot imitate the graceful actions which sway the body as when a
well-made man walks leisurely, and it cannot get all the muscles of the
mouth, tongue, and larynx (or organ of voice) to act simultaneously and
orderly, so as to produce the sound of articulate voice. Yet these actions are
performed by man without any special effort; they may be done without
thinking, and are mechanical, as it were, or more properly, “automatic,”
done as if by a machine; they require a very perfect arrangement of the
nervous system, and an unusual amount of nervous matter.

No amount of schooling, could it be given, would ever make a Gorilla
entertain the notion of insuring its life; arithmetic is impossible; the fine arts
and poetry are unattainable, and therefore by so much is its brain the
smaller and simpler.
The brain case, or the space enclosed by the crested skull bones, is
compactly filled with the nervous material in all animals, so it is only
necessary to ascertain the relative dimensions of the spaces in different
animals to get a notion of the difference in the sizes of their brains. The
space can be measured by filling it with sand, and then measuring its bulk
in a proper measure.
Some Gorillas have larger spaces for the brain than others, and in this
they resemble man, for there is a considerable difference between the
capacity or the size of the space in a well-educated European and a savage
Australian. And, doubtless, some Gorillas are cleverer than others, or are
more active, generally speaking, so have larger brains; but an average may
be taken of the different sizes in them as in man, and the results come out as
follows:—
The average or mean size or capacity of the brain case in the Gorilla is
about 31 cubic inches, a cubic inch being a six-sided space of one inch
long, broad, and high. In man, the European may have a brain case holding
114 cubic inches, and the Australian only 63 cubic inches; the mean of the
European size is 93 cubic inches, that of the Australian being 75. Hence the
brain case, and therefore the mass of the substance of the brain of the
Gorilla, is not one-half that of the lowest race of man.
Only the brains of young Gorillas have been examined, and these have
not been in a very satisfactory state; but enough has been gleaned from their
study to determine that they are not so high, wide, or long, relatively, as
those of mankind. The brain of man is a wonderfully complex structure, and
the nervous matter is folded and packed in many ways or “convolutions,”
and the nerves arise from special parts which are connected by cross and
long fibres or “commissures.” All these structures exist, but not in
perfection, in the Gorilla’s brain; and although the nerves are large, that
portion of the brain which originates their energy and action is much
smaller than in man.

Apparently the brain grows to a certain age in the Gorilla, and then the
skull increases in outward size, and the creature has a huge body, with
mental capacities far below those of a child or man.
The ridges and crests on the top and back of the Gorilla’s skull are
larger than those of any of the great flesh-eating animals of the cat tribe,
and it has therefore been thought that they were a proof of the occasional
bad habits of the great Ape, and of his indulging now and then in negro
flesh. Large as are the crests in the old males, they are barely present in the
females and young, and they must be regarded partly as of use to the larger
animals, and partly as ornamental; for in animal nature, as a rule, the
gentlemen are more beautiful than the ladies, the idea of beauty being, of
course, very much a matter of taste. They are evidently protections against
falls, and they also give origin to muscles. The back crest, when looked at
from behind, is almost fan-shaped, the bone being broad, and the great
muscles of the neck and back are attached to it. They pull the head
backwards, and the single, long crest on the top gives origin to the muscles,
which pass downwards on the temples to the lower jaw. Indeed, the energy
of the muscles of the side of the head is principally devoted to the lower
jaw, to its crushing, crunching, and masticating offices, for the food,
although often soft enough, is occasionally inside the sugar-cane, and
several harder woods. The powerful upper jaw is, of course, attached to an
equally strong lower one, which forms the front and lower part of the face.
The upper jaw reaches out far in front of the eyes and nostrils, and is
straight rather than bulged, and appears narrow, from side to side, in
comparison with the great, wide cheek-bones, but it looks formidable with
four strong front teeth, projecting only slightly, and a large, long, eye tooth
on each side, sticking out rather far below the others.
On looking at the under surface of the roof of the mouth and palate, the
cause of the length of the front of the face is seen. Instead of the back teeth
forming an open curve around the roof of the mouth, as in men, they are
placed in a long, and almost parallel straight row. Five great teeth on each
side thus form with the bone, into which their fangs are planted, a long side
to the face. In front of these is the large eye, or dog tooth (canine tooth),
mentioned above.
The palate and roof of the mouth are long and comparatively narrow,
and hence no Gorilla could speak distinctly, or use his tongue glibly enough

to talk as a child. Howling and a kind of bark may, on the contrary, be done
to perfection.
But although of no use as regards speech, the long roof of the mouth,
with its wide ranges of teeth, is of great importance to a vegetable-eating
creature, which does not want the sugary juices of its food to run out of the
corners of its mouth, and which spends the greater part of its time in filling
its capacious stomach.[4] The lower jaw fits the upper one, and when its
teeth clench with those above, the cavity of the mouth is nearly shut, and it
is quite closed by the lips and cheeks outside.
As might be expected from the great muscles which unite the lower jaw
to the skull, it is large and strong, but it has no projecting chin, and this
slopes in a retiring manner. The side of the jaw which supports the teeth is,
as in man, curved upwards behind at what is called the angle. The jaw is
very movable, and can act sideways in munching, or up and down, as in
biting; and having these powers—thanks to the action of different sets of
muscles—it has teeth fashioned to bite, and to crunch, and to chew. They
greatly resemble those of the upper jaw, on which they work, and a
superficial view of them all leads to the opinion that they greatly resemble
those of man; there are, however, many differences. As in the upper jaw, the
front and eye teeth are nearly straight in front, the last-mentioned projecting
outwards, and the front teeth biting inside the upper ones; and the back
teeth are in straight rows also.
The following story is told by Du Chaillu to illustrate the cause of the
wearing of the front teeth of the Gorillas. He had gone into the interior, and
was suffering from hunger, so went out into the forest for game. Not finding
any, he was about to retrace his steps, when he heard the unmistakable roar
of a Gorilla. He writes, “I plunged forward into the thick of the forest,
breaking, as I went along, small boughs to enable me to find my way back,
and tearing my clothes in the thorny underwood. The roar became nearer,
and seemed to shake the ground under me. I heard the rustling of the
branches, and fancied there must be more than one. The excitement of the
moment was great, and was increased by the prospect of obtaining food for
all our party. Suddenly the roaring ceased. I stopped, thinking that it was a
male, which was preparing to advance on me. But I listened in vain—the
beast had fled. When I reached the spot I saw nothing but broken branches
of trees. I measured some of them with my thumb, and found boughs of five

inches’ diameter broken in two by the powerful grip of this monster of the
forest. Although disappointed in my chase, I was glad to find a
corroboration of the explanation I had given of the wearing down of the
animal’s front teeth, for some of the branches plainly bore the toothmarks.”

UPPER JAW. PALATE. UNDER JAW.
THE TEETH OF THE GORILLA.

As the teeth of the Gorilla are admirably adapted for their duties of
masticating and biting vegetable food, sometimes soft and sometimes hard,
and as they resemble in number and general arrangement those of man, it is
necessary to notice them briefly. They are of three kinds, the front ones,
which bite when the jaw is moved up and down, the large eye teeth (or dog
teeth), which pierce, and the back teeth, which crush and grind. The first-
mentioned are called incisor teeth or cutters, and there are four in the upper
and four in the lower jaw, as in man; the inner two in each jaw being larger
than the outer two. They project slightly, and those of the upper jaw cut on
the lower ones, and are, when the jaws are clenched, in front or “over-
hung.” In shape they are adapted for biting a piece out of anything, and they
have one fang each, which fits into a socket in the jaw. In the upper jaw
there is a space between the incisor teeth and the great eye or dog teeth.
This is one of the matters which distinguish the jaw of the Gorilla from that
of man, whose teeth are continued in a row without any spaces where the
gum is visible between them. The cause of the space is that the lower eye

tooth is so large and long that when the mouth is closed it fits in there. This
space is called a “diastema,” and, as it is a term which will often be
mentioned, it is necessary to notice that it is taken from the Greek word
διάστημα, “an interval.” In the lower jaw the incisor teeth are succeeded by
the eye teeth without any diastema. The eye or dog teeth are usually called
canines, from Canis, a dog, they being very distinct in that animal. They are
four in number, two being in each jaw, one on each side, and those of the
upper jaw are long and pointed, being rounded, moreover, outside, and
marked by grooves inside. The lower canines are nearly as large as the
upper ones, and, as already noticed, fit in the diastema in front of those of
the upper jaw.
Behind the canine teeth are, on each side in both jaws, five crushing
teeth, that is to say, ten in each jaw, and twenty in all. In the upper jaw there
is a continuous row of teeth from the canines in front to the last of the
crushers, which occupy the position of the upper wisdom teeth of man, but
in the lower jaw there is not this serried row of teeth, for, between the
crushing ones and the canine, there is another space or diastema into which
the upper canine tooth fits when the mouth is closed.

SKELETON OF THE GORILLA.

All these hind teeth are made to endure constant grinding, one over the
other, in masticating, besides frequent shocks—as when nuts are cracked—
and to last for years. Covered with a beautiful enamel, which gives them
strength and smoothness, they are safely fixed by fangs in sockets in the
bone, in such a manner that the nerves and blood-vessels supplying them do
not suffer from pressure. They are not quite flat at the top, for then they
could not grind, and they are not acutely sharp-pointed, for then the points
would prevent the side-to-side movement of the jaw, and would be broken
off; but they have rounded projections, or cusps, on them, separated by
grooves, so that those of the teeth of one jaw can fit into those of the other.

All these teeth are not quite alike, and they are divisible into two kinds, the
three hinder ones being the molar teeth, from Mola, a mill-stone, and the
two in front of them being called false molars or pre-molars (front molars).
Every one who has had a back tooth (a molar) taken out, will remember its
three fangs, and in a Gorilla there would be the same terrible wrench in
extracting a molar for the same reasons as with us. But, fortunately for it,
tooth decay is unknown, and the molars, with their three fangs, last as long
as life. The pre-molars have two fangs only in man, but it appears that
sometimes there are three to those teeth in the upper jaw of the Gorilla, and
two only in the lower. They are smaller than the true molars or three back
teeth, and in front of them; and that nearest the canine tooth is often tall,
and almost like a four-sided pyramid in shape. The size of the crushing or
molar teeth is very distinctive of the Gorilla when it is compared with the
other great man-like Apes, for the upper ones are equal in size, and in the
lower jaw the hindmost tooth is larger than the others. Moreover, these
lower teeth have five cusps or projections. There is a ridge extending
obliquely across the crowns of the lower molars from an inner to an outer
cusp; and the cross-like grooves of the upper surface of the corresponding
teeth in man are not seen. The manner in which the teeth of the Gorilla
differ from those of other Apes will be mentioned in the several
descriptions. Milk teeth, or those of the first set, are found in baby and
young Gorillas, and when they fall out the permanent set come out of the
jaw and replace them, adding also to their numbers. The long canine teeth
are characteristic of the old males, and those of the females and young are
much smaller. The thirty-two teeth of the Gorilla, eminently adapted for a
mixed vegetable diet, are therefore arranged as follows:—Upper jaw—four
incisors, two canines, four pre-molars, and six true molars, and there is the
same number in the lower jaw.
It is a very remarkable fact, and one which will be of some interest in
comparing one of the other great Apes with the Gorilla, that the skull of the
young Gorilla (of both sexes) and that of the full-grown female differs
materially from that of the male in the absence of the prominent ridges of
the top and back of the head. This gives a roundness to their skulls which
would at first sight lead to the belief that they could not belong to the same
species.

Living upon such nice things as sugar-canes and pine-apples, the Gorilla
has a long and well-formed tongue to taste them with,[5] and a good nose to
enjoy their scent and fragrance. The nostrils are open, and look downwards,
being separated by a moderately wide piece of flesh covering, gristle, or
cartilage, and they are protected above by very dense bones, which form the
slight ridges called the nasal bones. Up the nose a passage leads to the air
spaces in the bone of the front of the head, and they and some curiously
curled bones not very far from the nostrils are covered with a delicate
membrane well supplied with the nerves in which the function of smell
exists.
Both the natives and Du Chaillu allude to the roaring and yelling of the
old male Gorillas, and it will be noticed further on that the young ones can
make noise enough. Dr. Savage was told that when the male is first seen he
gives a terrific yell that resounds far and near through the forest, something
like Kh—ah! Kh—ah, prolonged and shrill, and others have compared the
noise to distant thunder. They have an organ of voice on the top of the
windpipe, made on the plan of that of man, but deficient in many respects,
and especially in those fine adaptations of structure which produce the
human voice. But there is a very remarkable arrangement in their larynx, as
it is called, which, although it has nothing to do with the formation of
sound, may possibly make it more resonant and growling, and this is one of
the things which separate the great Ape from man in matters of mere
construction.
At the back of our tongues, and also of those of
the Gorilla, is a little flap, rather hard and gristly in
us, and only membranous and soft in the Ape, which
covers over the top of the air-passage into the
windpipe when any food is swallowed. The food or
drink would otherwise get into the air-passage, and
would be constantly going “the wrong way.”
Immediately under this flap, or, as it is called, the
epiglottis, is a space limited in front by the hard
substance we call in our throat the “Adam’s apple,”
and at the bottom of it are the movable structures by
whose action voice is produced. Now, in the this
space is not shut in front as it is in us, but there are THROAT OF GORILLA.

two openings in it, one on either side, which lead to a complicated sac or
pouch. This pouch is made of thin membrane, and covers, when blown out
like a bag—for the air coming out of the windpipe can be forced in—the
front of the windpipe, and projects sideways under the muscles of the
throat, and even amidst those of the armpits. The Gorilla can thus blow his
neck out, as it were, and when he is yelling, the air in the bag or pouch must
resound. Possibly this great bag of air may have something to do with
making the body lighter when the animal is climbing and using all the force
it can with its arms. These so-called “laryngeal” pouches are found in many
Apes and Monkeys, but their double opening into the space below the little
flap is peculiar to the great Apes, which are sufficiently man-like as to be
called by the term Anthropoid—the Gorillas, their allies the Chimpanzees,
the Orangs, and the Siamangs.[6] All the other Monkeys of the Old World
with sacs have but one opening into a space, or, as it is termed, the ventricle
of the organ of voice, or larynx. The Monkeys of the New World have a
different arrangement of air pouches, which will be noticed in the proper
place.
The Gorilla has one little peculiarity which distinguishes it from all
other Apes and Monkeys, and which causes it to be more like man, and
insignificant as it may seem, it is of some interest. In man there is a decided
projection of bone behind, or rather below the ear, and this is called the teat-
shaped process of the ear-bone (Mastoid process), and is of importance to
the organ of hearing and also to the muscles which steady and keep the head
erect, and allow of its being moved in particular directions. This process
exists to a certain extent in the Gorilla but not in the Chimpanzee, Orang-
Utan, or in any other of the Quadrumana. It is smaller in the Gorilla than in
man, but it is made up, as in us, of a number of spaces enclosed by bones
which have to do with the organ of hearing in some way or other, and which
are lined with membrane. On the outside a muscle is attached, which passes
downwards and inwards to the top of the breast-bone, covering the great
blood-vessels and nerves of the neck.
In examining this process of bone, attention is of course drawn to the
ear itself, and there is no doubt of the remarkable resemblance of those of
man and of the Gorilla. The great Ape has evidently a very quick sense of
hearing, for it gets out of the way of men as quickly as is possible, when it
can only hear them in the forest and jungle, but that it should have the

outside ear fashioned nearly after the resemblance of that beautiful structure
in man is very remarkable. The ear of the Gorilla is smaller in proportion to
the size of the head than those of other Apes, and is about the same length,
but broader than that of man; the lobe, which is perforated by us for
earrings, is perhaps less perfect in the Gorilla, but all the curves and folds,
which are so complicated yet so graceful in the human ear exist in it,
modified more or less, and not so harmonious in their general symmetry, as
in man.
With all its great strength, the head of the great Ape cannot move as
readily on the neck as that of weaker man, for the skull is not placed on the
neck end of the back-bone quite in the same manner, and its position is not
that which is admirably (as in us) adapted for carrying the head erect. One
of the greatest marvels in the structure of man is the manner in which the
tender mass of nerves called the spinal cord or marrow passes out of the
hard skull into a bony canal down the spine, and yet does not suffer injury
as head and back move and roll about.
The spinal cord or marrow passes out of the skull through a special
opening, on the outside of which is a joint on either side. These joints fit on
to corresponding ones on a ring-shaped bone (atlas bone), and this bone
rests on one equally hollow, and which has an upward projection which
enters the ring (axis bone), and is clasped to it by a strong ligament. It is
this projection which prevents the spinal marrow from being injured by the
head moving too freely, and yet life hangs almost on a thread, for were this
strong ligament to break the soft nerve would be pressed in by the bony
projection, and death would ensue. All the motions of the head are
connected with these bones and their joints, and the way in which it is
carried is in relation with the position of the opening in the skull for the
spinal marrow. If the head is to be carried erect, as in man and in many
birds, the opening is far from the back part of the head. If the face is to look
upwards, as it does in a pig or dog, the opening is very far backwards. In the
Gorilla it is not quite at the back, but further in that direction than in man,
and hence the face of this Ape is more liable to be looking upwards than
forwards. This is really the case, for the natural position of the animal is not
erect, but on all-fours, and then it wants to look, not on the ground, but
upwards and forwards, by tilting the head. Many of the great muscles of the
back crest have to do with this. It is noticed also that the joint which permits

the head to move on the ring-shaped bone (the atlas bone) is not so long or
curved as in man, and therefore the movements of the Gorilla’s head are
restricted.
All accounts of the life of a Gorilla tell of its moving rapidly amongst
trees, climbing readily and noiselessly, and gathering its food constantly. It
is therefore necessary to examine into the manner in which this is done, and
how it relates to the shape and anatomy of the creature.
In climbing trees, the Gorilla, like a man under the same circumstances,
lifts up the arms over the head, and clasps or holds on with one hand, but
the position of the hand is not the same. Apes seize instinctively with the
knuckles towards them, and not with the ends of the fingers and palm as
man: and this makes a great difference, for the muscles of the back are
therefore more important to the Ape than those of the chest in climbing.
Then with some muscular effort the body is lifted or rather drawn up, so
that the unemployed hand can reach and clasp higher than the other; and
having thus two hands holding on to a bough or a tree, the muscles of both
arms are used to draw up the ponderous trunk, head, and limbs until the
face comes more or less on a level with the wrists. When this is
accomplished, one of the arms is suddenly forced upwards to enable the
huge grasp of the fingers to tighten upon a higher fixed point, and the
“hand-over-hand” process is continued as long as is necessary. Doubtless
the clasping feet assist in this movement, which is only rarely performed by
man, but which is one of the commonest with the great Ape. A sailor or an
acrobat may often use the muscles which are required to perform this feat of
carrying upwards the body with the aid of the arms, but ordinary people
rarely employ their energies in this manner; the Gorilla, on the contrary,
must climb often and for some distance every day of its life, both for food,
amusement, and for shelter. It becomes, therefore, an interesting question
whether the Gorilla has any special muscles or bones which enable it to
climb easily and rapidly, and for a considerable time, or whether there are
the same kinds of bones and muscles in its hands, arms, and shoulders,
which are to be found in man modified more or less. The results of careful
inspection have proved that, although there are no peculiar structures given
to the great Ape wherewith it may climb, still the bones of the arms and
shoulders, and the muscles which are attached to them, greatly as they
resemble those of man, are larger and stronger. Bone for bone, and almost

muscle for muscle, the climbing limbs of the man and the Gorilla may be
compared with extraordinary exactness; the structures of the last-mentioned
being, as it were, simple exaggerations of the former, and the increased size
bearing a distinct relation to the agility and energy displayed. It must be
remembered, however, that whilst in man the muscles of the chest assist
principally in climbing, in the Ape those of the back and shoulders are the
most important.

FOREST IN THE GABOON COUNTRY—THE LAND OF THE GORILLA.

It is hardly necessary to notice the relation which bones and muscles
have to movement, and the most unlearned in anatomy need only be
reminded that muscles are adherent to certain parts of bones. The bone, by
itself, is motionless, and the force which can move it, and with it, the
surrounding flesh and skin, acts through the muscles, and these consist of
vast numbers of long microscopic fibrils, placed side by side, and adherent,
at both ends, to different bones. The fibrils have a vast amount of energy in
them, and they can contract, or, in other words, shorten; the diminution in
length being accompanied by a display of force. As the fibrils shorten, they
tend to bring the motionless bones closer together, and to impart motion,
which may be rapid, and more or less forcible. If one bone is stationary, the

other may be brought towards it by the muscular contraction, or if both are
not fixed, both may move. The nervous force produces the muscular
contraction, whose vigour and lasting power depend a great deal upon the
supply of blood sent to the fibrils through the blood vessels (arteries), and
removed through the veins.

BONES OF THE FORE-ARM AND ARM OF THE GORILLA—SIDE VIEW.

SHOULDER OR BLADE-BONE.

In the principal act of climbing hand-over-hand, a bough or some
stationary object is grasped by the fingers, the arm being straight, and the
body hanging, as it were, to it. The first motion is the lifting up of the arm;

the second is the grasping with the hand; and the third is the bending of the
straight elbow, and bringing the shoulder up nearer the fixed point, or the
part grasped. Whilst this is being done the body is not limp, but more or less
stiffened by the spine, which runs down the back, and consists of many
bones, being made rigid by the contraction of many small muscles. Now the
bones and muscles of all the parts of the body engaged in climbing are so
arranged that the spine shall not suffer any jarring, but shall be lifted up
safely. Were all the muscles which pull upon the arms attached to it, every
unusual effort would drag it almost to pieces, so there is a wide flat bone
placed between the spine and the arm. This so-called blade-bone is jointed
by a ball and socket joint to the arm-bone, but is only united to the spine
and back part of the head by muscles. Muscles start from the spine to the
blade-bone, from the blade-bone to the bones of the arm and fore-arm, and
from these last to the bones of the fingers, and by their shortening or
contraction, the fingers being stationary, the body is at last brought closer to
them.
In order to explain the first motions of climbing, it is necessary to
remark that on looking at the skeleton of the Gorilla the shoulder-blades are
seen to be of the same general shape as those of man; they are much larger,
however, and there are some anatomical points about them, which clearly
have to do with the ability of the great Ape to keep its arms up for a long
time, and to pull up its heavy body when the hands and fore-arms are fixed
and immovable by clasping. One muscle, which in ourselves forms the
cushion on the shoulder, and reaches down the outside of the arm for a little
distance, is called the deltoid or Δ-shaped muscle, and its especial duty is,
when the shoulder-blade is fixed, to lift up the arm by its contraction. The
movement is permitted because between the spots where the muscles are
adherent to the blade-bone on the one hand, and to the outside of the arm-
bone on the other, a distance of several inches, there is a joint like a ball and
socket. The muscle is not attached to a flat surface on the blade-bone, but to
a raised edge, which runs rather obliquely, and is called the spine of the
bone. Now this muscle is of immense importance to the Gorilla, as may be
imagined from the nature of its function or office: it is placed in the same
position as in man, and between the same kind of bones, but the spine of the
blade-bone is longer, broader, and more slantingly set in the Ape, so that
extra strength and greater power are attained.

This spine, or rather raised ridge, can be felt when we place the right
hand over the left shoulder as far as possible, keeping the fingers between
the neck and the end of the shoulder, and its slanting position can be traced
best in the Gorilla; and it may be mentioned, that in the Chimpanzee the
direction is much more oblique. Above this spine of the blade-bone there is
the upper part of the blade, and it is covered with muscle, the space thus
occupied being much larger in the Gorilla than in man. This muscle starts
from this bone, to which it is attached, and is united to the arm-bone, close
to its joint with the blade-bone; it is larger in the Gorilla than in us, and one
of its uses is to assist the deltoid just mentioned.
There is rather an interesting arrangement in the old Gorillas, which is
not found in the young or in man, and which appears to have to do with the
power of this muscle and its prolonged action. The muscle is well supplied
with blood, and the nerve which endows it with energy is particularly well
prevented from being compressed during the movements of the muscles
amongst which it runs, any compression being very injurious. The upper
edge of the blade-bone is notched, and a dense tissue or ligament stretches
from one point of the notch to the opposite one, enclosing a small open
space; now the nerve runs through this space, and is protected by the hard
tissues of bone and ligament from the contraction of the soft muscles. In the
old Gorilla a further protection is found in the presence of a little projection
of bone in this space, which acts as a greater preventer of pressure.
After passing through this space the nerve enters the very substance of
the muscle, and is distributed to its fibrils.
The upper arm reaches down from the shoulder to the hips in the
Gorilla, and its bone (os humerus, from the Latin) is strongly marked on its
surface by roughnesses and ridges, to which the great muscles are attached.
In man the shape of the upper arm varies with the strength of the individual,
but in the strongest man and in the most beautifully-shaped woman it has a
swelling on the front, and tapers more or less towards the elbow. This is
caused by the two-headed or biceps muscle, and by other muscles ending in
tendons. But the Gorilla has a very shapeless upper arm; it is, as it were, fat
and round throughout, and very large above the elbow, and this is because
of the size of the bone within, and on account of the muscles not tapering as
they do in man, but being well developed right down to their ends. Hence,
elegance of shape is sacrificed to extra muscular strength and size of bone.

On looking at the arm-bone, which, being connected to the shoulder by
a joint, has much to do with the act of climbing and striking, it will be
noticed that it greatly resembles that of man in shape, but is longer, stouter,
and clumsier. The joint is nearly in the shape of a rounded knob, and the
corresponding depression or cup on the blade or shoulder-bone into which it
fits, is an oval and concave surface, and they are kept close together by a
kind of capsule which stretches from one bone to the other and encloses the
joint. Perfect freedom of movement is insured by the bones being covered
with glistening cartilages, and a delicate and moist membrane, and the
motion from the shape of the apparatus is almost equal to that of a
chandelier where there is what is called a cup-and-ball joint at the ceiling. It
has already been noticed that muscles are attached to the blade-bone and to
the arm-bone below the joint, and that, this being movable, when they
contract they move the arm, and the instance was given of the action of the
deltoid muscle in raising the arm. In the Gorilla, this great muscle reaches
lower down than in man, and there is a very strong mark in the shaft of the
bone for its insertion. This gives the muscle greater play than in us, and
enables it to lift, more slowly perhaps, but more efficiently, for the arm-
bone between the joint and the place where the muscle is attached, is the
long arm of a lever which is shorter in man. Below the globular head of the
arm-bone is the shaft or cylindrical part of the bone which gives origin to
the three-headed muscle called triceps, and is covered by the two-headed
one (biceps) already mentioned, besides the deltoid. A deep groove allows
one of the ends or heads of the biceps to pass along and slide over the joint
and to reach the shoulder-blade. The shaft as a whole is more or less
cylindrical, with a slight angular outline, the angles being projections of
bone which strengthen the whole, besides giving attachment to muscles; the
cylindrical shape is the best for strength and lightness, and these properties
are increased by the adoption of a plan which engineers have long since
unwittingly copied. The shaft is hollow, and is cellular at both ends, solid
bone covering the outside, conditions which oppose fracture, and produce
increased strength, indeed greater strength and lightness than a solid bone
would have. Below the shaft is an expansion, on which are placed the
surfaces for the jointing on of the two bones of the fore-arm, and the bone is
especially in old Gorillas perforated there, a condition seen in some very
old human bones. There is an important point in the relative length of the
upper arm-bone, and the bones of the fore-arm in the Gorilla, in other Apes,

and in man, for in this great Ape and in us the humerus is longer than the
others, and in the Chimpanzee they are almost equal, whilst in the rest of
the Monkeys they are very unequal, the bones of the fore-arm being much
the longest.
Although they have such strong arms, covered with a stout skin and
with hairs sloping downwards, the Gorillas sometimes manage to break
them, and then Nature endeavours to repair the injury. In the skeleton of the
old male Gorilla in the British Museum there are proofs of a former fracture
of the humerus or upper arm-bone. The arm was broken across, and as it
could not be kept quiet, Dame Nature has not done her work as well as a
modern surgeon could on a patient whose arm he could put in splints, for it
is thickened, shortened, and twisted.
The fore-arm of the Gorilla has its long hairs pointing upwards to the
elbow, and the limb does not slope gracefully towards, and become slightly
smaller above the wrist, as in man, but remains thick and fleshy as far as the
hand. There are two bones in the forearm which are jointed above with the
lower end of the arm-bone (humerus), and which are also connected by
joints at their lower ends with the small bones forming part of the wrist. The
bones of the fore-arm are called the radius and the ulna in the Gorilla as in
man. They are larger, stouter, and wider apart in the great Ape than in
ordinary Europeans, but they greatly resemble those of the Australian
aborigines. As these bones are covered with muscles, some going to the
fingers, and others coming from the upper arm, there are many ridges or
surfaces on them, for their origin and attachment, and these greatly
resemble those of man; moreover, the muscles perform the same functions
and movements.
When compared with that of a strong man, the wrist of the Gorilla is
broader, and the bones, of the same number, are larger from side to side,
and this extra breadth makes this part of the hand very wide. As the
Gorilla’s hand often has to support the weight of the body, on the back of
the fingers and knuckles, it is long, broad, and very strong, surpassing in
these respects those of man; but the thumb is peculiar. It does not look a
well-formed one; it is evidently short, and out of proportion to the long
fingers. The human thumb reaches not far from the second joint of the fore-
finger; but the top of that of the Gorilla is on a level with the first joint, or at

the end of the long bones of the hand, and which are called metacarpal
bones.
Remarkable then for its breadth and thickness, the Gorilla’s hand has
also a long palm, which is not only due to the length of the bones, just
mentioned, but also to the fact that the web or undivided skin between the
fingers, where they join the hand, is not slight as in man, but long and very
decidedly visible. The web extends half way up the first joint of the fingers.
The fingers are therefore made to appear short[7] (although their bones are
long), and they look dumpy and swollen, and this appearance is increased
by there being callous pads of skin on the back of the middle and end joints.
Finally, the fingers slope to the nails, which are not much larger or longer
than those of man. The back of the hand is hairy as far as the divisions of
the fingers; and the callous pads, just noticed, almost do away with the
appearance of some of the joints. The short thumb, not so big as the
forefinger, has a nail which does not reach the end of it, and the under-parts
of the thumb, fingers, and palm have a bare skin. Professor Owen, in
summing up the difference between the structure of the hands of the Gorilla
and of man, remarks that in the great Ape the hands are instruments for
great power of grasp, and for sustaining great weight, and the length and
strength of the whole upper limb accord with their mechanical powers and
requirements. In man, the framework of the hand bespeaks an organ of
varied and delicate prehension, and the form and proportion of the rest of
the arm-limb relate to the free motions and complex functions of the
instrument.
Having raised the arm by its muscles, the fingers and thumbs grasp an
object, or, in other words, certain muscles which are placed between the
bones of the fingers and between the fingers and the bones of the fore-arm,
contract and move the bones, which are jointed. The tops of the fingers are
bent on the palm, and the thumb is closed on them, and this continues as
long as the contraction permits. All the apparatus for long-continued
clasping is present in the Gorilla, and there are nearly the same kinds of
muscles employed as in man. There are, however, some differences, to one
of which it is necessary now to allude. The thumb, for instance, of the
Gorilla is of great importance in grasping, but it has not to perform such
complicated movements in other things as that of man. In man its
movements are most wonderful, and by using one muscle after the other

which belongs to it, it can be moved so as to describe a circle with its tip.
This is done in the action of “twiddling,” but also in many others where the
will hardly influences the muscle, and where the thumb may be said to be
moved unconsciously. Gorillas in their quietest and most reflective moods
cannot indulge in the sober practice of twiddling, for an important twiddling
muscle is absent in them. But it is no great loss, and perhaps it is a real gain,
for this muscle would be in the way of rapid clasping, as it rather tends to
keep the thumb from the fingers. Whilst the great Ape is thus deficient it
has a muscle on the other side of the hand which is not possessed by man,
and whose office appears to be to separate as far as is possible the fourth
and fifth fingers (their first joints), and by so doing to enlarge the grasp of
the whole hand. As the hand of the Gorilla is at least a third larger than that
of the averaged-sized man, there is of course a corresponding increase in
the space which can be grasped. The muscles are stronger and stouter than
in us, and therefore the hand is a more powerful one. Nevertheless it is
incompetent of performing many actions which are readily done by a child.
Having lifted up the arm in the act of
climbing, and having grasped something,
the third motion commences, the object
being to draw up the body to the wrist and
fingers, which of course remain as fixed
points. All the muscles which intervene
between the fore-arm bones and the spines
of the back have to contract and shorten,
HAND BONES OF THE GORILLA. so as to bring the last-named bones
towards the fixed point, and they may be
divided into three groups—those which
reach from the arm-bones to the blade-bone, those which connect the blade-
bone and the back-bone, and those which unite the arm and the back-bone.
All contract at once and shorten the distance between the body and the arm;
some fix as it were the blade-bone, and twist it slightly, placing it in a
straight line for the pulling of others; and the most important bend and pull
down the elbow. Two muscles may be noticed in particular. One which has
already been noticed forms the lump on the front of the arm when the wrist
is brought close to the shoulder, and is called “biceps,” because it has two
heads or points of adhesion to the blade-bone, not far from the joint of the
arm-bone. The fibres pass over the arm from the blade-bone down to one of

the bones of the fore-arm, in front of the bend of the elbow, and when they
contract they tend to bend the elbow and bring the wrist near the shoulder,
or the shoulder near the wrist when the fingers are fixed or clasping. The
biceps of the Gorilla is a vast muscle, but it wants the symmetry of that of
man, and it does not taper downwards so as to make the arm narrower
above the elbow. Another muscle is at the back part of the arm, and from
having three upper heads or attachments is called the “triceps.” Two of the
heads are attached to the arm-bone, and one to the blade-bone, and the
lower one is fixed on to the piece of bone of one of the fore-arm bones, on
which the arm rests when “elbows are on the table.” Its action is to drag the
blade-bone towards that bone, and it is assisted in this by a muscle which
passes from the spine to the arm-bone, and whose office in climbing is to
drag the spine towards the arm. Finally, there are numerous muscles which
pass from the long spines of the pieces of the back-bone (vertebræ) to the
blade-bone, and which in climbing tend to drag the first towards the last-
mentioned bones, and to move the body generally upwards. The huge size
of the blade-bone assists in this in the Gorilla, as its large surface can give
adhesion to larger muscles than a smaller one; and as the arm-bones are
large, there is all the more room for muscular play.
Considering the bulk of the body of a Gorilla, and the nature of the
movements of climbing, it is to be expected that those muscles and bones
which are connected, as just stated, with the blade-bone, should be large
and strong. This is remarkably the case. On examining the back of a Gorilla
one is struck with the great projection of the back-bones in the neck. In man
each back-bone or vertebra has a projection or spine which sticks out
backwards more or less. These are small in the region of the neck, but in the
Gorilla these spines are very long there, and give a peculiar hump-necked
appearance. Their size, however, is in exact relation with the size and
strength of the muscles attached to them, and some of these go to the blade-
bone to assist in the act of climbing.
It is this hump-necked appearance and the round-backed look produced
by the great size of the blade-bones which make a Gorilla so ugly about the
chest and head, but beauty is of much less use in an African forest than
good stout bones and active muscles.
The hind part of the neck does not form a graceful curve as in a well-
made man, but a projection which gradually slopes into the line of the back.

Moreover, the shoulders of the Gorilla do not slope from the neck—on the
contrary, their direction is that which renders the hand-over-hand movement
of climbing the readiest of commencement. They are “high,” as the term is,
the head and neck being as it were sunken between them, so that the chin,
instead of being on a much higher level than the top of the breast-bone, is
naturally lower than it. The front of the neck is thus hidden by the huge
lower jaw.
Gorillas have collar-bones which are in the same position as those in
man, but they are straighter, stouter, and stronger: they are not placed
almost horizontally between the front of the blade-bone and the breast-
bone, as in us, but as the shoulders are “high” they slant downwards to the
breast-bone. By placing the hand on the upper part of the opposite side of
the chest the collar-bone may be felt with the tips of the fingers like a ridge,
and it is one which many know to their cost is very readily broken by a fall
on the end of the shoulders. The bone is something like the letter f in
outline, without the cross-bar, and it is fixed at both ends: so when a force
acts on one end in the direction of the length of the bone it tends to bend,
and often cracks and breaks across.
Now a fractured collar-bone would be a serious thing to a Gorilla; he
could no longer lift up his arm, and he would be in constant peril and
difficulty; hence, Nature has given him not only a very strong and straight
bone, but has by the “high” shoulder posture rendered a fall on the top of it
almost impossible. A fall would probably injure the upper part of the arm,
which is well protected by the thick cushion of muscle, flesh, and hairy skin
which covers the bone.
Travellers and hunters have noticed the rapidity and ease with which the
Gorilla moves when off the ground, and when the size and the weight of the
animal are considered it becomes evident that not only must it have great
muscular power but a stout heart, good circulation, and capital “wind.”
It must be remembered also that it is a great eater of vegetable food, and
that it has to consume a large quantity to obtain a supply of nourishment: in
other words, it has a very capacious stomach, which has to be carried about
and kept very well filled.
In order to meet these requirements there is a very capacious chest
(much more so than in man), which contains the large lungs and heart, and

the belly is flaccid and large, so that the stomach need not press upwards
and interfere with the breathing, or with the action of the circulation. Man
has twelve ribs on either side, but the Gorilla has thirteen, each of which is
longer, stouter, and broader than ours, the result being to make the cavity
enclosed by them the greater, but apparently less readily influenced by the
muscles of respiration.
When we breathe deeply and endeavour to inspire more than is usual we
employ certain muscles which act on the ribs, enlarging the cavity of the
chest, and then diminishing it as the expiration occurs. The larger the spaces
between the ribs, and the more elastic the ribs themselves, the greater is
their possible amount of movement. In us it is very great in the child, great
in man, but much less in old age, when the elasticity of the ribs diminishes.
In the Gorilla, the breadth and strength of the ribs keep the cavity of the
chest always vast, and certainly from their solidity and from the small space
which exists between the successive ribs, great and unusual efforts of
respiration are not very possible. So large is the cavity of the chest in the
Gorilla, and so capacious are the lungs, that it is possibly not necessary for
it to put itself out of breath, and to call extraordinary muscular exertion into
play, during its uneventful life.
Having thirteen ribs on either side, and each rib being attached to a
separate bone of the spine, the Gorilla has therefore one more spine bone
(vertebra) than man, and is all the more long-backed. Moreover, the breast-
bone, which is on the front of the chest, is broader in the Gorilla than in
man, and at least one-third longer, thus adding to the capacity of the cavity
of the chest, making it of about 500 cubic inches; that of man being 330
cubic inches.
The lungs and heart of the great Ape resemble those of man, and the
great arteries are given off from the main blood-vessel in the same manner
in both.
The Gorillas appear to be great eaters, and to roam about, either in small
bands or alone, seeking for their favourite food in the forest, and the
plantations close by. Sometimes they seek the high plains and rough ground
of the hills, especially where certain trees are found, and they invariably
cling to the forests about water. They eat the cabbage of the palm nut tree,
and partake of the papau, banana, and amomum fruits. Wild sugar-canes

attract them, and they are especially fond of the succulent white parts of the
pine-apple and its leaves. Some hard kinds of nuts are readily cracked with
their huge teeth, which are also brought into use in tearing open the stems
of juicy plants.
All the examinations of the dead bodies of the Gorillas prove their diet
to consist of such things, and the remains of berries, pine-apple leaves, and
other vegetable matters were found, but not flesh or anything like it. This
food is, however, not very nourishing, and it must be taken in large
quantities and frequently. Hence the animal must not only have good
climbing powers to get his food, but a large stomach and intestines to digest
it rapidly. There is no doubt that the figure of the Gorilla testifies to its kind
of food. The abdomen is very large, and sticks out when the animal is in the
erect position; its paunch is vast, and therefore the bones which support it
below, or the haunch bones, are very wide.
These haunch-bones form part of a girdle of bones which, in a skeleton,
unites the legs to the spine, and which contains, in living animals, the
bladder, part of the reproductive organs, and the unborn young.
It is called the pelvis, or basin-shaped bone (being very unlike one); its
upper edge is formed by the expanded haunch, or ilium bones (ilium, or gut,
alluding to the support given by the bone to the bowels), and its lower one
by the bones on which men and Gorillas sit, or the hip (the ischium, or hip-
bone). In the Gorilla the pelvis is enormous, and the edge of the haunches is
long, so as to give attachment to the muscles which enclose the vast
digestive apparatus behind and at the side, but it does not form a graceful
curve behind and below, for certain muscles which are of great use to man
in maintaining the erect posture, and which straighten the thigh in the body,
are weak in the great Ape. These muscles originate outside and below the
top of the haunch, and when large and strong, require a peculiar shape of
bone: they form in man what does not exist in the Gorilla, and that in which
the Hottentot Venus glories. But the Gorilla can sit just as well upon a pair
of short and expanded hip-bones (ischial tuberosities, in the language of
anatomists), and as he has no tail (the bones forming it in other Monkeys
being diminished in number and united in a short process), he can do so for
a considerable time with comfort. The sitting in the upright position is
moderately easy to the Gorilla, and the older ones evidently often do so.

They squat and rest their broad backs against a tree, and as this is a very
constant and favourite position, they wear a good deal of their back hair off.
The fate of a hunter is thus given by Du Chaillu, who pledges himself to
three very debatable points: that the Gorilla meets its enemy erect; stands
and fights; and kills by a blow across the abdomen:—“We set off towards a
dark valley where Gambo said we should find our prey. The Gorilla chooses
the darkest, gloomiest forests, for its home is found on the edges of the
clearings only when in search of plantains, sugar-canes, or pine-apples.
Often they choose for their peculiar haunt a wood, so dark that even at
midday one can scarce see ten yards. This makes it the more necessary to
wait till the monstrous beast approaches near before shooting, in order that
the first shot may be fatal. It does not often let the hunter reload. Our little
party separated, as is the custom, to stalk the wood in various directions.
Gambo and I kept together. One brave fellow went alone, in a direction
where he thought he could find a Gorilla. The other three took another
course. We had been about an hour separated, when Gambo and I heard a
gun fired, but a little way from us, and presently another. We were already
on our way to the spot, where we hoped to see a Gorilla slain, when the
forest began to resound with the most terrific roars. Gambo seized my arm
in great agitation, and we hurried on, both filled with a dreadful and
sickening alarm. We had not gone far when our worst fears were realised.
The poor brave fellow, who had gone off alone, was lying on the ground in
a pool of his own blood, and I thought, at first, quite dead. His bowels were
protruding through the lacerated abdomen. Beside him lay his gun. The
stock was broken, and the barrel was bent and flattened. It bore plainly the
marks of the Gorilla’s teeth. We picked him up, and I dressed his wounds as
well as I could with rags torn from my clothes. When I had given him a
little brandy to drink he came to himself, and was able, but with great
difficulty, to speak. He said he had met the Gorilla suddenly, and face to
face, and that it had not attempted to escape. It was, he said, a large male,
and seemed very savage. It was in a gloomy part of the wood, and the
darkness I suppose made him miss. He said he took good aim, and fired
when the beast was only about eight yards off. The ball merely wounded it
in the side, and it at once began beating its breasts, and with the greatest
rage advanced upon him. To run away was impossible, for he would have
been caught in the jungle before he had gone a dozen steps. He stood his
ground, and, as quickly as he could, reloaded his gun. Just as he raised it to

fire, the Gorilla dashed it out of his hand, the gun going off in the fall; and
then in an instant, and with a terrible roar, the animal gave him a
tremendous blow with its immense open paw, frightfully lacerating the
abdomen, and with this single blow laying bare part of the intestines. As he
sank bleeding to the ground, the monster seized the gun, and the poor
hunter thought he would have his brains dashed out with it. But the Gorilla
seemed to have looked upon this also as an enemy, and in his rage almost
flattened the barrel between his strong jaws.”
In spite of this anecdote, and some drawings by Du Chaillu, which
represent the Gorilla standing erect, it is very doubtful, from anatomical
reasons, whether this is possible. The comparative smallness of some of the
most important muscles in the Gorilla, which in man produce the erect
position, has already been noticed, and it is now necessary, for the same
reasons, to examine into the nature of the lower limbs.
The thigh-bone (called from the Latin, femur) of the Gorilla is shorter
than the arm-bone, the reverse being the case in man; and hence the Ape
appears to be too short in the legs for its long body and arms. It is stout and
rather straight, and has not the forward bend of the same bone in man:
moreover, some well-marked ridges which run down the back of it, and
which were exceedingly well developed in the oldest races of men, are
deficient in the Gorilla. The same may be said for the markings on the bone,
which indicate the presence of powerful muscles whose action is to keep
the thigh straight with the back—or in other words, to keep the body erect.
Below the knee are the two bones of the leg: the inner one, or shin-bone
(the tibia), is very short for the height of the animal, and the joint on its
lower part, on which moves the ankle-bone, is not so deep and perfect as in
man, whose weight is constantly to be borne on it whilst it is being moved
in walking. The little outside bone, called fibula, or the clasp-bone, in the
Gorilla is so made that it adds singularly to the inability to maintain the
erect posture whilst walking, and even in standing still. The lower end of
this bone in man forms the prominence outside the ankle, and covers and
protects the outside of the topmost bone of the ankle, to which the foot is
attached. It strengthens it and prevents that turning in of the foot, which is
antagonistic to the placing the sole flat on the surface of the earth, so that it
can receive the weight of the body on its broad space and allow of the
position so characteristic of man. In the Gorilla this bone does not come

down as far as the ankle, and all the safeguards against intwisting are not
present. Why, is clear enough, because the Gorilla treads on the outside of
its foot-like hand, and always has the sole turned in. There are some other
points which require to be noticed, however, about the leg. It is short and
evidently wanting in “calf.” It is therefore deficient in that symmetry of
which many mortals are most proud. Nevertheless, it has a high instep, also
a human desideratum; but in spite of this the ankles are thick and shapeless-
looking. The tendon which reaches from the calf to the back heel-bone (os
calcis) 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 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.

HUNTING THE GORILLA.

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.
Each kind of animal must be compared with others, some of which
appear to be more complicated and some less highly organised, so that its
peculiar construction can be comprehended. Man, as the perfection of living
forms, is naturally considered the model or type with which all others
should be compared, and therefore anatomists who begin by studying man
name the bones, muscles, and other structures of animals after his. That is to
say, any of their structures which are comparable with those of man, by
their native position and use, are named similarly.
The question then arises, and can of course on this principle be
answered, are the hinder extremities of the Gorilla feet or hands? do they
resemble human feet or human hands in their anatomy, or in the
arrangement of their bones, muscles, leaders, and blood-vessels?
By placing side by side the joined bones of the foot of man and those of
the hind extremity of the Gorilla, it will be observed that the same number
are present, and that they can be compared, as regards their shape and
position, in a most remarkable and satisfactory manner.
A human foot is composed of three parts, so far as its bones are
concerned. These are the toes, or the very movable bones in the front of the
foot (1), and then there are five slender bones (2) placed side by side, and
reaching from the toes to the pieces forming the back of the foot or ankle.
The five bones thus parallel, and situated between the beginning of the toes
and the ankle-bones, are counted from within outwards. That attached to the
great toe is the first, and that to the little toe is the fifth. These are called
metatarsal bones, and give length and narrowness to the foot, and they can
be readily felt with the finger on our own bodies.

BONES OF THE ANKLE BONES OF THE ANKLE
AND FOOT OF MAN. AND FOOT OF THE GORILLA.

Behind them are the seven bones of the “tarsus,” or ankle, all connected
together in a strong arch, and jointed in front to the five bones just
mentioned, and above to the two bones of the leg. The hindmost part of the
ankle or heel is formed by the heel-bone, os calcis (3), which forms the
back part of the arch of the sole. The Achilles tendon is united to it behind,
and above it is jointed with a bone, on which rest the bones of the leg, the
astragalus bone (4), so called from the Greek word, which means a “die,”
for the boys and men in the olden time tossed these bones, and played with
those of the sheep as modern boys do.
There are two bones of the ankle just in front of these; one in contact
with the heel-bone is called, from its shape, the cuboid or cube-shaped bone
(5), and the other, jointed to the astragalus, is, from its faint resemblance to
a boat or hull of a ship (navis), termed the navicular bone (6). In front of
these two are three others placed side by side, and jointed in front to some
of the metatarsal bones. They are called, from their wedge-shaped outlines
(wedges for the arch of the foot), cuneiform bones (7), and there are the
inner, middle, and outer of them. The inner is curved on its front surface,
and has a joint there for the end of the slender (metatarsal) bone of the great

toe. It is longer than the next wedge-shaped bone, so that just a little spot of
the second slender bone of the second toe touches it close to the
corresponding one of the great toe. This inner wedge-shaped bone, the
metatarsal bone of the great toe, and the joints of the toe itself, are all on a
line, which is parallel to the bones of the next and other toes. The middle
and the outer wedge-shaped bones have each a slender metatarsal bone
attached to them, and the two remaining slender metatarsals are jointed on
to the cube-shaped bone which projects in front of the heel-bone (os calcis).
It is the length in front, and the solidity and arched form of the ankle,
together with the parallel direction of all the slender metatarsal bones,
which give the human foot its beauty of form, strength, and ability to
sustain the weight of the body flat on the sole. Compare the hinder grasping
(so-called) hand of the Gorilla with this.
At first sight there is a great difference, for the great toe and its
metatarsal bone form an angle with the bones of the other toes and their
metatarsals. Instead of the toes and their slender bones being parallel and
fixed in this position, the great toe of the Gorilla has a power of moving so
as to cross the foot more or less below, as the human thumb can cross the
palm. It has also the capacity of being stretched out from the foot, so that its
movements greatly resemble those of a thumb. In fact, we want a word to
express a toe-thumb.
On examining the foot carefully, it will be found that each of its bones
may be compared and identified in position and office with the same in
man. There is a heel-bone with a great projection behind, for the fixing on
of the Achilles tendon, and this is jointed on to a bone above, like the
human die-bone or astragalus, and to one in front, like the cuboid. The
astragalus resembles that of man, but the upper and outer surfaces on which
the lower ends of the leg-bones move, are slightly different, so as to admit
of greater turning in of the ankle. The wedge-shaped bones are there, and
the inner one, with its joint for the slender bone of the great toe, is shorter
and broader than in man, so as to allow of great movement of the toe-thumb
in front of it. The slender bones, or metatarsals, are larger and longer, but
their shape and direction, with the exception of the first, are singularly like
those of man. As a whole the foot of the Gorilla, for thus it must be called,
is broader in front of the ankle-bones and longer everywhere than in us, but
it has a sideway and almost club-foot look about it; its position is “turned

in,” like the foot of a young child before it walks. This is owing to the
conformation and easy jointing of the bones of the ankle and foot, and also
to the action of a front muscle of the leg which pulls the very movable
bones inwards. The structures allow of a very ready turning in of the ankle
and foot, and such as would render climbing easy with the aid of the toe-
thumb; but they evidently interfere with the steadiness in walking. It is a
huge foot, and it is only half an inch or so shorter than the leg below the
knee; it is unwieldy as a foot, but is a capital foot-hand, which cannot
readily have its toes stretched out straight, for their usual position is that of
being slightly bent in the direction of the sole.
Mr. Walker purchased from a native a fine healthy male Gorilla,
apparently about two years of age, and shipped it for England. Being under
the impression that he had taken too much care of all the other living ones
which he had obtained at different times, he determined to let the new
acquisition have its own way, and only take care that it did no mischief.
When purchased, the animal was by no means strange or spiteful, but rather
what may be termed shy, and suspicious of strangers. At the expiration of
about a week, however, it became sufficiently tame and confiding to admit
of its being allowed to run about loose, and to do as it liked. At the same
time its food, instead of being confined to the fruits on which it is supposed
to feed in its wild state, consisted in general of fragments from the table,
and beside these it had anything edible it could lay its hands on, and
occasionally a basin of condensed milk and a raw egg beaten up in it was
given. It liked amomum fruit, but this produced diarrhœa which had to be
treated with chlorodyne and raw egg. Finding that the animal became
restive, it was left entirely to its own devices, and especially as every one in
the ship was at the same time so very busy as not to be able to pay much
attention to it. It soon became quite at home, alternately eating, sleeping,
and playing with a large bull-terrier (of by no means the most amiable
disposition), which had a most decided dislike to negroes, but nevertheless
took very kindly to the Gorilla, so that the two animals became constant
playfellows. By allowing the Gorilla to rough it, instead of watching it, and
appointing someone to take care of it, in which case these animals become
so much attached to their keeper or attendant, that a separation from him
almost invariably causes these affectionate Apes to pine away and die, and
by habituating it to such food as is generally to be found on shipboard, it
was hoped that it might be brought to England. But accidents will happen,

even to Gorillas. It came down to dinner one day, and ate scraps with the
dog, and went to sleep. When looked for, some hours afterwards, it was
missing, and must have fallen off the taffrail into the sea. Strangely enough,
this young one was not given to climbing. It will be noticed that these
remarks are totally at variance with those of M. Du Chaillu, who was
impressed with the untamable character of the Gorilla; so we must wait
until further evidence is produced, and probably until a little Gorilla is
safely lodged in the Regent’s Park.
Many attempts have been made to obtain a live Gorilla for exhibition in
Europe, and some years since a showman really had one which he called a
Chimpanzee, but the fact was not known to scientific men until a
photograph of the creature was exhibited after its death. In June, 1876, Mr.
Moore, the learned curator of the Free Public Museum, wrote to the Times
after seeing a young Gorilla in Liverpool. He stated—“A veritable young
living Gorilla was yesterday brought into Liverpool by the German African
Society’s Expedition, which arrived by the steamship Loanda, from the
West Coast. The animal is a young male, in the most perfect health and
condition, and measures nearly three feet in height. Its beetling brows,
flattened podgy nose, black muzzle, small ears, and thick fingers, cleft only
to the second joint, distinguish it unmistakably from the Chimpanzee.
“Could it have graced our own Zoological Gardens it would have been
the lion of the day; for, in addition to the great scientific interest of the
species, the abounding life, energy, and joyous spirits of this example would
have made it a universal favourite. Courteously received at Eberle’s
Alexandra Hotel by the members of the Exhibition, I found the creature
romping and rolling in full liberty about the private drawing-room, now
looking out of the window with all becoming gravity and sedateness, as
though interested, but not disconcerted, by the busy multitude and novelty
without, then bounding rapidly along on knuckles and feet to examine and
poke fun at some new comer, playfully mumbling at his calves, pulling at
his beard (a special delight), clinging to his arms, examining his hat (not at
all to its improvement), curiously inquisitive as to his umbrella, and so on
with visitor after visitor. If he becomes over excited by the fun, a gentle box
on the ear would bring him to order like a child, like a child only to be on
the romp again immediately. He points with the index finger, claps with his
hands, pouts out his tongue, feeds on a mixed diet, decidedly prefers roast

meats to boiled, eats strawberries, as I saw, with delicate appreciativeness,
is exquisitely clean and mannerly. The palms of his hands and feet are
beautifully plump, soft, and black as jet. He has been eight months and a
half in the possession of the Expedition, has grown some six inches in that
time, and is supposed to be between two and three years of age.” Nearly
every other attempt to rear them in Europe has failed. The Zoological
Society has, at rare intervals, possessed specimens of young Gorillas, but
the climate of England would appear to be quite unsuited to them, for,
despite Mr. Bartlett’s every care and attention, none of these interesting
creatures survived for any length of time.
Du Chaillu insists on the ill-temper, ferocity, and untamable nature of
the young Gorilla, as the results of his experience. One was brought to him
about three years of age, with its neck put in the cleft of a stick to keep it
quiet, and after much trouble they got it into a bamboo cage. It was a little
black thing of two feet six inches in height, and its habits, escapes, and
death are amusingly told. “As soon as I had the little fellow safely locked in
his cage, I ventured to approach to say a few encouraging words to him. He
stood in the furthest corner, but, as I approached, he bellowed and made a
precipitate rush at me; and though I retreated as quickly as I could he
succeeded in catching my trouser leg, which he grasped with one of his feet,
and tore, retreating immediately to the corner furthest away. This taught me
caution for the present, though I had a hope still to be able to tame him. He
sat in his corner looking wickedly out of his grey eyes, and I never saw a
more morose or more ill-tempered face than had this little beast. The first
thing was, of course, to attend to the wants of my captive. I sent for some of
the forest-berries which these animals are known to prefer, and placed these
and a cup of water within his reach. He was exceedingly shy, and would
neither eat nor drink till I had removed to a considerable distance. The
second day found Joe, as I had named him, fiercer than the first. He rushed
savagely at any one who stood even for a moment near his cage, and
seemed ready to tear us all to pieces. I threw him some pine-apple leaves, of
which I noticed he ate only the white parts. There seemed no difficulty
about his food, though he refused now, and continued during his short life
to refuse, all food except such wild leaves and fruits as were gathered from
his native woods for him. The third day he was still morose and savage,
bellowing when any person approached, and either retiring to a distant
corner or rushing to attack. On the fourth day, while no one was near, the

little rascal succeeded in forcing apart two of the bamboo rails which
composed his cage, and made his escape. I came up just as his flight was
discovered, and immediately got all the negroes together for pursuit,
determining to surround the wood and recapture my captive. I was startled
by an angry growl issuing from under my low bedstead. It was Master Joe,
who lay there hid, but anxiously watching my movements. I instantly shut
the windows, and called to my people to guard the door. When Joe saw the
crowd of black faces he became furious, and, with his eyes glaring, and
every sign of rage in his little face and body, got out from beneath the bed.
We shut the door at the same time and left him master of the premises,
preferring to devise some plan for his easy capture rather than to expose
ourselves to his terrible teeth. How to take him was now a puzzling
question. He had shown such strength and such rage already, that not even I
cared to run the chance of being badly bitten in a hand-to-hand struggle.
Meantime Joe stood in the middle of the room looking about for his
enemies, and examining, with some surprise, the furniture. I watched with
fear, lest the ticking of my clock should strike his ear, and perhaps lead him
to an assault upon that precious article. Indeed, I should have left Joe in
possession, but for a fear that he would destroy the many articles of value or
curiosity I had hung about the walls. Finally, seeing him quite quiet, I
dispatched some fellows for a net, and opening the door quickly, threw this
over his head. Fortunately we succeeded at the first throw in perfectly
entangling the young monster, who roared frightfully, and struck and kicked
in every direction. I took hold of the back of his neck, two men seized his
arms, and another the legs, and thus held by four men this extraordinary
little creature still proved most troublesome. We carried him as quickly as
we could to the cage, which had been repaired, and there once more locked
him in. I never saw so furious a beast in my life as he was. He darted at
every one who came near, bit the bamboos of the house, glared at us with
venomous and sullen eyes, and in every motion showed a temper
thoroughly wicked and malicious. As there was no change in this for two
days thereafter, but continual moroseness, I tried what starvation would do
towards breaking his spirit; also, it began to be troublesome to procure his
food from the woods, and I wanted him to become accustomed to civilised
food, which was placed before him. But he would touch nothing of the
kind; and as for temper, after starving him twenty-four hours, all I gained
was that he came slowly up and took some berries from the forest out of my

hand, immediately retreating to his corner to eat them. Daily attentions from
me for a fortnight more did not bring me any further confidence from him
than this. He always snarled at me, and only when very hungry would he
take even his choicest food from my hands. At the end of this fortnight I
came to feed him, and found that he had gnawed a bamboo to pieces slyly,
and again made his escape. Luckily he had but just gone; for, as I looked
around, I caught sight of Master Joe making off on all-fours, and with great
speed, across the little prairie, for a clump of trees. I called the men up, and
we gave chase. He saw us, and before we could head him off made for
another clump. This we surrounded. He did not ascend a tree, but stood
defiantly at the border of the wood. About one hundred and fifty of us
surrounded him. As we moved up he began to yell, and made a sudden dash
upon a poor fellow who was in advance, who ran, tumbled down in affright,
and, by his fall, escaped, but also detained Joe sufficiently long for the nets
to be brought to bear upon him. Four of us again bore him, struggling, into
the village. This time I could not trust him to the cage, but had a little light
chain fastened around his neck. This operation he resisted with all his
might, and it took us quite an hour to securely chain the little fellow, whose
strength was something marvellous. Ten days after he was thus chained he
died suddenly. He was in good health, and ate plentifully of his natural
food, which was brought every day for him; did not seem to sicken until
two days before his death, and died in some pain. To the last he continued
entirely untamable; and, after his chains were on, added the vice of
treachery to his others.”
In one of his hunting excursions Du Chaillu obtained a younger Gorilla
than the last, but its end was sad enough.
“I was accessory to its capture,” writes Du Chaillu, “and we were
walking along in silence, when I heard a cry, and presently saw before me a
female Gorilla, with a tiny baby Gorilla hanging to her breast and sucking.
The mother was stroking the little one, and looking fondly down at it; and
the scene was so pretty and touching that I held my fire, and considered—
like a soft-hearted fellow—whether I had not better leave them in peace.
Before I could make up my mind, however, my hunter fired and killed the
mother, who fell without a struggle. The mother fell, but the baby clung to
her, and, with pitiful cries, endeavoured to attract her attention. I came up,
and when it saw me it hid its poor little head in its mother’s breast. It could

neither walk nor bite, so we could easily manage it; and I carried it, while
the men bore the mother on a pole. When we got to the village another
scene ensued. The men put the body down, and I set the little fellow near.
As soon as he saw his mother he crawled to her, and threw himself on her
breast. He did not find his accustomed nourishment, and I saw that he
perceived something was the matter with the old one. He crawled over her
body, smelt at it, and gave utterance, from time to time, to a plaintive cry
—‘Hoo, hoo, hoo!’ which touched my heart. I could get no milk for this
poor little fellow, who could not eat, and consequently died on the third day
after he was caught. He seemed more docile than the other I had, for he
already recognised my voice, and would try to hurry towards me when he
saw me. I put the little body in alcohol, and sent it to Dr. Wyman, of
Boston, for dissection.”
Of course all the stories about the Gorilla are not believed, and those of
all writers, from Hanno downwards, have been severely criticised.
A distinguished African traveller, Winwood Reade, stated that the name,
leaving alone the stories, of Hanno, was a blunder, and that the word Gorilla
was misapplied, because the habits of the creature do not tally with the
story. The Gorillæ of Hanno were found, it is supposed, on Sherboro Island;
they scaled rocks and defended themselves with stones. They could neither
have been Gorillas nor Chimpanzees, but a species of Cynocephalus, or
Dog-faced Monkey or Baboon. “These animals,” writes this author, “which
I have seen often enough, go in troops, which Gorillas do not, and actually
defend themselves with stones, a fact which I assert not only on the
evidence of natives, but on the evidence of white men who have kept them
in a state of captivity. They are also very ferocious, and will always defend
themselves when attacked either by man or beast. I spent five months,” he
continues, “in the Gorilla country, and did not leave that part of Africa till I
had completely satisfied myself respecting the habits of this animal. The
evidence which I now lay before you is composed of statements made to me
by men who had killed Gorillas. It is collected from three distinct parts of
Equatorial Africa, namely, from the Balengi of the Muni River, from the
Shekani and Fans, of the Gaboon, and from the Commi, Bakeli, &c., of the
Fernando Vaz. But from the last river, where Gorillas are plentiful, I
obtained the most information.”

“The Gorilla is found in those thick and solitary places of the forest
where animal life is scarce. His food is strictly vegetable. He moves along
the ground on all-fours, sometimes he goes up into trees to feed on fruit,
and at night he sleeps in a large tree. When the female is pregnant, the male
builds a nest, where she is confined, and which she abandons as soon as her
young one is born. The Gorilla does not beat its breast like a drum. It utters
a kind of short sharp bark when enraged, and its ordinary cry is of a
plaintive nature. With respect to its ferocity, the hunters have a proverb,
‘Leave a Ngina alone, and it will leave you alone.’ When it is at bay, and
wounded, it will attack man like the stag, the elephant, and other animals
which are naturally timid. But it makes its attack on all-fours, and the
hunters, who are themselves as nimble as Apes, often escape from it as men
escape from the charge of an elephant. I have seen a man who was wounded
by a Gorilla; his wrist was crippled, and the marks of the teeth were visible.
He told me that the Gorilla seized his wrist, and dragged it into his mouth; it
was contented with having done this, and then made off. The nearest
approach to an erect posture which the Gorilla attains is by supporting itself
by hanging on to the branches. When I asked the people of Ngumbi whether
a man had ever been killed by a Gorilla, they said that their fathers had
spoken of such a thing, but that nothing of the kind had happened within the
memory of anybody living. Such is the evidence of the native hunters upon
the habits of the Gorilla. I could not find that it differed in any important
respect from the Chimpanzee, except in its superior size and strength, and
in its certainly being more formidable when wounded. But when I asked the
hunters which was the most dangerous, the Leopard or the Gorilla, they
replied the ‘Leopard.’
“I can make one or two positive assertions from my own experience.
Although I never succeeded in viewing a Gorilla in its wild state, I can
assert that it travels on all-fours, for I have seen the tracks of its four feet
over and over again. I can assert that it runs away from man, for I have been
near enough to hear one running away from me; and I can assert that the
young Gorilla is as docile as the young Chimpanzee in captivity, for I have
seen them both in a state of captivity. I have also seen the lying-in nests
both of Chimpanzees and Gorillas, the latter being the larger of the two.
The Chimpanzee has the character of being more intelligent than his big
brother.” This careful traveller doubted some of the stories told by M. Du
Chaillu about Gorilla killing, so he went to the neighbourhood where this

slaying was said to have taken place. On arriving at the town of Ngumbi
pretending to be trading, he writes, “I was asked whether I would buy
Gorillas as M. Du Chaillu did. I refused to buy them, but said that I would
give a large reward to any hunter who would get me a shot at one, and also
a present to the King. They seemed astonished at this, and asked me why I
wished to do a thing that other white men had never wished to do. Now, I
had taken with me two interpreters, and managed to make them quarrel, so
that there might be no collusion in the matter. I examined Etia, a hunter, in
whose company M. Du Chaillu professes to have killed Gorillas, by each
interpreter separately. I examined in the same manner the five guides who
had escorted him in the Opingi country; and though they spoke of M. Du
Chaillu in high terms, and appeared to have a great affection for him, all
replied that he had never shot a Gorilla.”

YOUNG GORILLA AND DOG.

Still later accounts from able naturalists confirm Winwood Reade’s
views, and insist upon the truth of the fact that no European has ever seen a
Gorilla in its adult age alive, and in its native forests. They start off at the
slightest noise, and are only hunted by natives for the sake of their bones
and skins, which are valuable enough in Europe. Moreover, exception has
been taken to the tales about the intractable and violent nature of the
Gorilla, and more than one well-known African naturalist sides with those
who disbelieve in the ferocity of the young Gorilla.
The reason why the Gorilla flourishes in Western Equatorial Africa is
probably because the great Carnivora, or beasts of prey, are not found in the
dense forests and open prairies which cover the country. The jungle begins
where the sea ceases, and then comes the virgin forest, extending some
degrees north and south of the equator, and reaching unknown distances
inland. There are no Lions, and but few Leopards, Hyenas, and Jackals to

be met with; the great African beasts—the Rhinoceroses, Giraffes, Zebras,
&c.—are absent. Snakes, Lizards, and a vast insect world abound, and there
are birds of prey. The Elephant is scarce, and, indeed, miles and miles may
be traversed without hearing or seeing any signs of large animal life. But of
all the mammals the Monkeys are the most numerous, and the Gorilla
reigns supreme. He has the forest to himself, and but few enemies. He has
companions, however, nearly of his own size, and whose description we
owe to Du Chaillu, and they are so constructed, anatomically, that they link
on, as it were, this greatest of all Apes with the well-known Chimpanzee,
which is also indigenous to the Gorilla land. The new Apes are the
Nschiego Mbouvé, or Tschiégo, and the Koolo-Kamba.

CHAPTER II.
THE MAN-SHAPED APES (continued)—THE NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ—THE
KOOLO-KAMBA—THE SOKO—THE CHIMPANZEE.

THE NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ—Its Nests and Habits—A Specimen Shot—Differences between
it and the Gorilla—Structural Peculiarities—THE KOOLO-KAMBA—Meaning of the
Name—Discovered by Du Chaillu—Its Outward Appearance and Anatomy—THE
SOKO—Discovered by Livingstone—Hunting the Soko—THE CHIMPANZEE—In
Captivity—On Board Ship—A Young Chimpanzee—The Brain and Nerves—
Anatomical Peculiarities—General Remarks upon the Group

THE NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ.[8]

THIS great Ape, which attains the height of four feet, and has a spread of
arms of seven feet, was discovered by Du Chaillu in the Gaboon district. It
is remarkable for building very comfortable shelters, and this led to its
being found; for Du Chaillu, in one of his excursions, was trudging along,
rather tired of sport, when he saw a most singular-looking shelter built on
the branches of a tree. He thought it had been made by the natives, and
asked whether the hunters had the habit of sleeping in the woods, but was
told, to his great surprise, that it was a nest built by the Nschiego Mbouvé,
an Ape. Moreover, one of the natives told him that it was a curious creature,
which had a bald head.
Many of the nests were seen subsequently, and it was noticed that they
were generally built about fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, and
invariably on a tree which stands slightly apart from others, and which had
no lower bough beneath the shelter. Occasionally they are to be seen at the
height of fifty feet; and it would appear that the altitude has something to do
with the dread of the few flesh-eating and destructive beasts, such as the
Leopard. The loneliest parts of the forest are chosen, for the animal is shy,
and is very rarely seen, even by the negroes. The materials for the nest
consist of leafy branches, and are collected by the male and the female also,
who tie them together, and to the tree, very neatly with twigs of the vine.
The roof is so well constructed that it closely resembles human work, and it
throws off the rain admirably, for it is neatly rounded at the top. During its

construction, the female gathers the branches and vines, whilst the male
builds; but afterwards they do not occupy the same shelter, the male making
another close by in a neighbouring tree. The roof, which is usually some six
or eight feet in diameter, is more or less dome-shaped, or something like an
extended umbrella; and the Nschiego gets under it and clasps the tree, or
squats on a bough, so that its head is just beneath the under surface. The
nests are not occupied permanently, and usually for not more than eight or
ten days, for the Apes, living upon wild berries of a certain kind, select
spots where they are plentiful, and leave them when the store is exhausted.
Du Chaillu never saw many nests together, and he does not think the
animals live in troops, but only in pairs. Sometimes a solitary nest is seen,
inhabited by a Nschiego, whose silvery hair denotes its age, and probably
its desire for solitude after a long and troublous life.
Being desirous of obtaining one of these shelter makers, as they were
evidently new to science, Du Chaillu took every precaution to surprise his
prey; but it is best to tell the story in his own words:—
“We travelled with great caution, not to alarm our prey, and had a hope
that, by singling out a shelter, and waiting till dark, we should find it
occupied. In this hope we were not disappointed. Lying quite still in our
concealment (which tried my patience sorely), we at last, just at dusk, heard
the peculiar ‘Hew, hew, hew,’ which is the call of the male to his mate. We
waited till it was quite dark, and then I saw what I had so longed all the
weary afternoon to see. A Nschiego was sitting in his nest. His feet rested
on the lower branch, his head reached quite into the little dome of the roof,
and his arm was clasped firmly round the tree-trunk. This is their way of
sleeping. After gazing till I was tired through the gloom at my sleeping
victim, two of us fired, and the unfortunate beast fell at our feet without a
struggle, or even a groan. We built a fire at once, and made our camp in this
place, that when daylight came I might first of all examine and skin my
prize. The poor Ape was hung up to be out of the way of insects, and I fell
asleep on my bed of leaves and grass, as pleased a man as the world could
well hold. Next morning I had leisure to examine the Nschiego.

NSCHIEGO MBOUVÉ. (From a Stuffed Specimen.)

“I was at once struck with points of difference between it and the
Chimpanzee. It was smaller, and had a bald black head. This is its
distinctive character. This specimen was three feet eleven inches high, or
long. It was an adult. Its skin, where there is no hair, is black, and the thick
breast and abdomen are covered with short and rather thin blackish hairs.
On the lower part of the abdomen the hair is thinnest, but this is not
perceived unless looked at carefully, as the skin is the colour of the hair. On
the legs the hair is of a dirty grey, mixed with black. The shoulders and
back have black hair between two and three inches long, mixed with a little
grey. The arms down to the wrist have also long black hair, but shorter than
in the Gorilla. The hair is blacker, longer, glossier, and thinner in general
than that on the Gorilla, and the skin is not so tough. I noticed that the bare
places, where the hair is worn off by contact with hard substances in
sleeping, were different from the bare places which are so conspicuous on
the common Chimpanzee.

“It is not as powerful an animal as the Gorilla, its chest is not so large,
but the arms and fingers are a little longer, and this is the case with the toes
also. The nose is not so prominent, but the mouth is wider and the ears are
larger. Its chin is rounder, and has more small hairs, and the side of the face
is thinly covered with hair, commencing about the middle of the ear, and
these would seem to be signs of an incipient beard and whiskers. The lower
parts of the body are bare, and the skin is white there.”
Apparently the disposition and temper of the Nschiego are better than
those of the Gorilla; it is less ferocious, and is even docile in captivity. It
has not the hideous expression of the great Ape, for there is something of a
forehead above the ridge of the eyebrow, and there are no great crests on the
head, which is rounder than that of the Gorilla. The teeth are rather smaller,
but are of the same number. The height is less than that of the female
Gorilla, as a rule; and the male of this bald kind is larger than its female;
whilst the little young ones differ in their colour from both, being white.
Finally, it would appear that there are hard callous pads on the back of the
fingers, that the hand is larger than the feet, and that the tips of the fingers
reach a little below the knee. Associated with the Gorilla and with the
Chimpanzee in the forests of Equatorial Western Africa, the Bald-headed
Troglodyte appears to have a restricted geographical range, and not to be
found over so large a district as its companions, for it was only met with on
the table-lands of the interior, and in the densest forests.
Subsequently Du Chaillu had a good opportunity of substantiating his
statements about the nests.
“On our way down, at sunset of the third day, we heard the call of a
Nschiego Mbouvé (Troglodytes calvus). I immediately caused my men to
lie down, and was just getting into a hiding-place myself, when I saw, in the
branches of a tree at a little distance, the curious nest or bower of this Ape;
hard by, on another tree, was another shelter. We crept up within shot of this
nest, and then waited, for I was determined to see once more the precise
manner in which this animal goes to rest. We lay flat on the ground, and
covered ourselves with leaves and bush, scarcely daring to breathe, lest the
approaching animal should hear us. From time to time I heard the calls.
There were evidently two, probably male and female. Just as the sun was
setting, I saw an animal approach the tree. It ascended by a hand-over-hand
movement, with great rapidity, crept carefully under the shelter, seated itself

on the crotch made by a projecting bough, its feet and haunches resting on
this bough; then it put one arm about the trunk of the tree for security.
“Thus, I suppose, they rest all night;
and this posture accounts for some
singular abrasions of hair on the side of the
Nschiego Mbouvé. At a little distance off I
saw another shelter made for the mate. No
sooner was it seated than it began again to
utter its call. It was answered; and I began
to have the hope that I should shoot both
animals, when an unlucky motion of one
of my men roused the suspicions of the
Ape in the tree. It began to prepare for
descent, and, unwilling to risk the loss of
this one, I fired. It fell to the ground dead.
It proved to be a male, with the face and
hands entirely black. As we were not in
haste, I made my men cut down the trees
which contained the nests of these Apes. I
found them made precisely as I have
before described, and as I have always
SKELETON OF NSCHIEGO.
found them, of long branches and leaves,
laid one over the other very carefully and
thickly, so as to render the structure capable of shedding off water. The
branches were fastened to the tree in the middle of the structure by means
of wild vines and creepers, which are so abundant in these forests. The
projecting limb on which the Ape perched was about four feet long. There
remains no doubt in my mind that these nests are made by the animal to
protect it from the nightly rains. When the leaves begin to dry to that degree
that the structure no longer throws off water, the owner builds a new shelter,
and this happens generally once in ten or fifteen days. At this rate the
Nschiego Mbouvé is an animal of no little industry.”
The differences between the outside appearance and the intelligence and
temper of this Bald-headed Ape and those of the Gorilla are accompanied
by certain internal ones. A careful examination of the skull of the Tschiégo,
as its clever French describer, Duvernay, calls it, shows that it has smaller

ridges, a less prominent muzzle, and a wider and shorter roof of the mouth
than the Gorilla. The last of the upper crushing, or back teeth, is the
smallest. In the Gorilla they are nearly equal in size. The lower jaw in the
Nschiego has three nearly equal-sized molar or back teeth, and the first and
the second have five projections or cusps, but the last has only four. In the
Gorilla it has five cusps. These minute differences are probably constant,
and therefore must not be passed over, although they may seem to be of no
importance to the creatures. But the classification of animals can only
depend upon the presence or absence of structural peculiarities; and when
such and such a structure exists in one, and not in another, they cannot both
be of the same kind. According to the relation of the structure to the life,
and according to its being constantly found, so is it important in deciding
whether the “kind” is a species, or a mere variety or race.
The great distinction between the two
animals is that the Nschiego’s forehead,
formed by the frontal bone, rises up from the
great brow ridge, and is visible from the
front. This is not the case with the Gorilla,
whose forehead recedes greatly. Both
animals have the same number of ribs
(thirteen), but those of the Nschiego are more
man-shaped and are not so broad and close
SKULL OF NSCHIEGO. together; and their chests differ in breadth,
for the breast-bone of the new Ape is
narrower, but it is long and thick. The blade-
bone, so important to the Gorilla, is equally so to the Nschiego, but it is
longer and narrower on the back, and its spine is very oblique. Possibly this
conformation of the bone may have to do with the constant climbing of the
Bald-headed Ape, but nevertheless the spines on the neck-bones, which
give origin to such exceedingly strong muscles in the Gorilla, are much
smaller in the Nschiego. The first neck-bone, or atlas, has no spine in this
Ape, in which it is like man, and the axis, or second, has a forked spine, and
is crested at the end, but otherwise is like that in man.
Finally, the rudiment of a tail is like that end of the back-bone found in
the Gorilla and in man.

These are the principal points and the most important distinctions; they
show that the Nschiego cannot be of the same kind or species as the Gorilla,
but is a Troglodyte, resembling the Gorilla somewhat in its skeleton, and
although smaller than the male, still quite, if not more, man-shaped.
The London Zoological Society own a fine example of the Bald-headed
Chimpanzee (Anthropopithecus calvus), which, under the name of “Sally,”
is known to every frequenter of their famous Gardens, where it has resided
since October, 1883.

THE KOOLO-KAMBA.[9]

This kind of Troglodyte is celebrated for saying koola-koolo over and
over again as its favourite cry, for having a very extraordinary frog-like
figure, and for being one of those creatures which are exceedingly
interesting to zoologists, because they are, as it were, half one thing and
half another.
A neighbour of the great Apes already noticed, it associates also with
the common Chimpanzee, in the quiet forests of Western Equatorial Africa.
In one of these Du Chaillu first saw it, and he describes his discovery as
follows:—
“We had hardly got clear of the Bashikoway ants and their bites when
my ears were saluted by the singular cry of the Ape I was after. ‘Koola-
koolo! koola-koolo!’[10] it said several times. Gambo and I raised our eyes,
and saw, high up on a tree-branch, a large Ape. We both fired at once, and
the next moment the poor beast fell to the ground with a heavy crash. I
rushed up, anxious to see if, indeed, I had a new animal. I saw in a moment
that it was neither a Nschiego Mbouvé, nor a Chimpanzee, nor a Gorilla.
Again I had a happy day—marked for ever with red ink in my calendar. We
at once disembowelled the animal, which was a male. I found in its
intestines only vegetable matter and remains. The skin and skeleton were
taken into camp, where I cured the former with arsenic sufficiently to take it
into Obindji. The animal was a full-grown male, four feet three inches high,
and was less powerfully built than the male Gorilla, but as powerful as
either the Chimpanzee or Nschiego Mbouvé. When it was brought into
Obindji, all the people, and even Quenqueza, at once exclaimed, ‘That is a

Koolo-Kamba.’ Then I asked them about the other Apes I already knew, but
for these they had other names, and did not at all confound the species. For
all these reasons I was assured that my prize was indeed a new animal; a
variety, at least, of those before known. The Koolo-Kamba has several
distinctive marks: a very round head, whiskers running quite round the face
and below the chin; the face is round, the cheek-bones prominent, the eyes
sunken, and the jaws not very prominent, less so than in any of the Apes.
The hair is black and long on the arm, which was, however, partly bare. The
Koolo is the Ape, of all the great Apes now known, which most nearly
approaches man in the structure of its head; for the capacity of the cranium
is somewhat greater, in proportion to the animal’s size, than in either the
Gorilla or the Nschiego Mbouvé. Of its habits these people could tell me
nothing, except that farther in the interior it was found more frequently, and
that it was like the Gorilla, very shy and hard of approach.” They are rare
animals, and Du Chaillu met with this one only; it was as large as a female
Gorilla, and from its structure was evidently a great climber.
One was killed and sent over to Paris several years since, and its
anatomy forms a great treatise by the distinguished men whose names are
appended to its title, Troglodytes Aubryi.
They agree with Du Chaillu in his slight notice of its shape and
peculiarities to a certain extent, and in his notice that the arms reach below
the knee, that the shoulders are broad, and that the ears are large, but they
give some very interesting descriptions of its strange characteristics. It has
many points of resemblance with the Gorilla and many with the Nschiego,
but it has others which cause it to be like the common Chimpanzee, and
which show some likeness to the great Baboon. It fills up the gap in the
animal scale between the Nschiego and Gorilla on the one hand, and the
true Chimpanzee (Troglodytes niger) on the other; and were it not in
existence, it would be necessary to divide these Apes into two groups or
genera, to make, in fact, a genus Gorilla and a genus Troglodytes, the first
to contain the Gorilla and Nschiego, and the last the Chimpanzee. They are
all therefore linked together in one genus by it, that of Troglodytes.
The shape and the peculiar anatomy of the Koolo-Kamba are not simply
curious and only interesting to those who study dry bones, for they have to
do with its habits and mode of life, and their examination is full of
instruction to those who like to understand causes and effects, and design in

Nature. Much has been explained in the chapter on the Gorilla regarding the
different parts of the body, and if that information is considered there will
be no difficulty in comprehending all about the Ape now under
consideration.
The shape of the body as a whole is admirably adapted for great powers
of climbing and of exertion of the limbs, and these last are adapted for the
same end in a manner surpassing the great Apes already described. But,
moreover, the body is peculiarly suited, not for maintaining or often using
the upright position or the legs, but for going on all-fours, like a Baboon or
Dog. Doubtless the Gorilla and the Nschiego do often stand up for a short
time, and their construction points at this being very possible, as their frame
has a combination of structures for doing this and for climbing. Now the
Koolo-Kamba must differ from them in its structure, for it requires those
which enable it to invariably go on all-fours, and yet to climb better than the
others.
It never wants to sit down, except with its knees drawn up to its nose,
and it squats on its haunch bones (the tuberosities of the haunch—of the
“ischium” bone).
The body is very ball-like, and there is no visible division between the
chest, the stomach, and the hips; it is not troubled with a waist, and
anything like one is positively below the hips, just over where the thighs
join the body. In fact, as before noticed, the shape is that of a frog. There are
no graceful curves to the back, and there is no “small” to it. On looking at
the chest, it will be noticed that it is long behind and short in front; the ribs
go down close to the edge of the hips; and in order that this extra stoutness
and strength of loin shall be there, there are fourteen ribs, instead of
thirteen, as in the other great Apes. The breast-bone in front sticks out, so
that were the animal to lie on its stomach its point would lean on the
ground, and not its front, as in us. This last peculiarity is an adaptation for
going on all-fours. The absence of waist and the shape of the loins relate to
the small size of one of the muscles of the back (sacro lumbalis), large and
important in man.

KOOLO-KAMBA.

The belly is very large, and it is kept from pushing into the chest by the
capacity given to the space within the ribs and breast-bone, by a bulged-out
state of the ribs at the back, and the projection of the breast-bone. Hence,
the frog-like figure looks asthmatical; and as it is very high-shouldered,
there is but little neck.
All this bulging has not only reference to the maintenance of the
capacity of the lungs, and its independence of the great stomach, which,
when full, would tend to press in all directions, but it enables the muscles of
the back and shoulders, which have so much to do with climbing, to be
large and vigorous. More space is afforded for the insertion or attachment
of muscular fibres.
The blade-bone does not add to the bulk of the shoulders, for it is rather
long and narrow for a great Ape; and its spine, which has so much to do
with the muscles which lift up the arm, is very much aslant, and in the best

direction for constant climbing, instead of much walking on the knuckles.
And that climbing and holding on are the usual motions may be credited, it
is only necessary to notice that the arms and the fingers are long, and that
the tips of them touch below the knee when the skeleton is placed upright.
Moreover, this great length is accompanied by corresponding strength, and
also by a very curious condition of the hands.
The Koolo has a larger hand in relation to its breadth than the Gorilla,
and there are no bunches of muscle forming rounded swellings or balls
under the thumb and little finger. On the contrary, the long and narrow palm
is, as it were, bent across, as if it could fit capitally on to a bough. There is
no doubt that this Ape, like all the others, does a good deal of swinging, by
holding on to boughs with its hands, when the arms are straight above the
head; and that they move along a bough, or from tree to tree, in this
position, without bending the elbow, and with considerable speed. This
method of getting along may also be seen in Chimpanzees. Evidently the
curved palm will be of immense advantage in such actions, and especially
when it is combined, as it is in the Koolo-Kamba, with a slightly bent-
downwards condition of the fingers. The bones (phalanges) of the fingers
are long, and each is slightly curved, and not straight, as in man and the
great Apes already noticed, so that their three bones, when in their proper
position, are decidedly out of a straight line, and present a general curve,
which is rendered all the more decided by the bend in the palm. All this is
very useful for grasping and holding on. But it is not all; in man and the
other great Apes, the wrist consists of two rows of small bones, one placed
before the other: the first row is jointed to the bones of the fore-arm, at what
is called the wrist-joint, which moves forwards and backwards as a hinge;
and the second row is so jointed on the first row that there is no movement,
and in front it is jointed to the bones of the palm, and to those of the thumb.
Now in the Koolo the second row of wrist-bones—or as they are called
from the Latin, carpus, a wrist—carpal bones are movable on the first row,
and muscular exertion can bend, not only the metacarpal bones and the
fingers, but also the wrist-bones. Hence the hand is more movable in the
bending direction than that of man, and the reason is because of the peculiar
requirements of the creature’s life. The thumb is small, and only reaches the
first joint of the forefinger: its tip can only touch the tip of one finger at a
time, and not those of all, as in man, and therefore it is not of much use in
distinguishing objects by touch; moreover, it cannot be stuck out far—and

this is necessary, for in climbing its tip is required to be as close to the
fingers as is possible. The muscles of the hands and arms resemble those of
the Chimpanzee generally, and will be noticed in describing it.
When the Koolo-Kamba walks, it does so like the Gorilla, by leaning on
the backs of its fingers, and hence it has callous pads on the back of their
second bones. All the peculiar construction of the hands and wrist bears a
relation to the vast muscular development of the muscles of the back of the
chest and shoulders in the process of climbing; and it is to be observed, as it
was in the instance of the Gorilla, that these muscles have more to do with
such actions than those of the chest, which go to the arm, and which are so
much used in man for that purpose. The muscles of the chest are not large
and strong in the Apes, for, as has already been mentioned, they climb with
the back of the hand towards the face, and do not attempt, like man, to lift
the body with the palm and nails turned towards him. This last proceeding
necessitates large chest muscles, and the former large ones at the back of
the shoulders.
There is something remarkable about the haunch-bones, or those parts
of them which support the body when sitting. In man they are well in front
of the end of the back-bone, which tapers off and turns in a little, and forms
a rudiment of a tail. These tuberosities of the haunch-bone (as they are
called, because they are swollen out and flattened for the especial purpose
in man) are placed, in the Koolo-Kamba, behind the end of the spine or the
true rudiment of the tail, and this throws all the under parts backwards,
giving the animal a thorough Baboon and animal character. Oddly enough,
the rudiment of the tail in this Ape is smaller than in man.
A study of the foot shows that it is of immense use in holding on and in
climbing, and of none in walking. It looks more like a small hand, furnished
with a great thumb, than a foot with a toe-thumb.
It differs from human feet in the length of the toes, and this is rather an
interesting artistic point, for there is some diversity in the opinions
regarding which should be the longest toes in man.
The Greek statues—those grand models of the highest types of mankind
—very constantly have the second toe the longest, and reaching more to the
front, when the foot is on the ground, than the great toe and the third.
Nowadays, after men have had their feet pinched, cabined, and confined in

all sorts of boots and shoes, generation after generation it is wonderful that
their toes should be of any shape at all; and, therefore, it must be anticipated
that the Grecian type will not always prevail. Nevertheless, 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, one is struck with the great ears,
which are larger than those of the Apes already described, and almost as
large as, but less detached, than 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 (Greek, gnathos, jaw or
mouth), or projecting in front, is black. 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. (See 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 papillæ 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 huge eater of vegetable food, it requires a large 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 mucous 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 high percentage of
nourishment; for in them the stomach and intestines are small, the surface
required not being great, and nature is wonderfully economical.

THE SOKO.

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, 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. The 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
cushat 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 illustrious traveller’s native
companions came to England, and was shown a stuffed Gorilla, he 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 extracts from Livingstone possess undoubted interest:—

“24th 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, but place the hand on
the head, as if to steady the body. When seen thus the Soko is an ungainly
beast. The most sentimental young lady would not call him a ‘dear,’ but a
bandy-legged, pot-bellied, low-looking villain, without a particle of the
gentleman in him. Other animals, especially the Antelopes, are graceful,
and it is pleasant to see them, either at rest or in motion; the natives also are
well made, lithe and comely to behold; but the Soko, if large, would do well
to stand for a picture of the devil. He takes away my appetite by his
disgusting bestiality of appearance. His light yellow face shows off his ugly
whiskers and faint apology for a beard; the forehead, villainously low, with
high ears, is well in the background of the great dog-mouth; the teeth are
slightly human, but the canines show the beast by their large development.
The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the natives. The flesh of
the feet is yellow; and the eagerness with which the Manyuema devour it,
leaves the impression that eating Sokos was the first stage by which they
arrived at being cannibals; they say the flesh is delicious. The Soko is
represented by some to be extremely knowing, successfully stalking men
and women while at their work; kidnapping children, and running up trees
with them, he seems to be amused by the sight of the young native in his
arms, but comes down when tempted by a bunch of bananas, and as he lifts
that, drops the child; the young Soko, in such a case, would cling closely to
the armpit of the elder. One man was cutting out honey from a tree, and
naked, when a Soko suddenly appeared and caught him, then let him go;
another man was hunting, and missed in his attempt to stab a Soko; it seized
the spear, and broke it, then grappled with the man, who called to his
companions, ‘Soko has caught me!’ The Soko bit off the ends of his fingers,
and escaped unharmed. Both men are now alive at Bambarré.”

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG SOKO. (Copied by permission from the Engraving In Livingstone’s
“Last Journal.”)

“The Soko is so cunning, and has such sharp eyes, that no one can stalk
him in front without being seen; hence, when shot, it is always in the back;
when surrounded by men and nets, he is generally speared in the back too,
otherwise he is not a very formidable beast. He is nothing, as compared in
power of damaging his assailant, to a Leopard or Lion, but is more like a
man unarmed, for it does not occur to him to use his canine teeth, which are
long and formidable. Numbers of them came down in the forest, within a
hundred yards of our camp, and would be unknown but for giving tongue
like Fox-hounds; this is their nearest approach to speech. A man, hoeing,
was stalked by a Soko, and seized; he roared out, but the Soko giggled and
grinned, and left him as if he had done it in play. A child, caught up by a
Soko, is often abused by being pinched, and scratched, and let fall.”

SOKO HUNT. (After a Sketch by Dr. Livingstone.)

“The Soko kills the Leopard occasionally, by seizing both paws and
biting them, so as to disable them; he then goes up a tree, groans over his
wounds, and sometimes recovers, while the Leopard dies. At other times
both Soko and Leopard die. The Lion kills him at once, and sometimes tears
his limbs off, but does not eat him. The Soko eats no flesh; small bananas
are his dainties, but not maize. His food consists of wild fruits, which
abound, and of these one is like large sweet sop, but indifferent in taste. The
Soko brings forth at times twins. A very large Soko was seen by Mohamad’s
hunters, sitting picking his nails; they tried to stalk him, but he vanished.
Some Manyuema think that their buried dead rise as Sokos, and one was
killed with holes in his ears, as if he had been a man. He is very strong, and
fears guns, but not spears. He never catches women.”

“Sokos collect together, and make a drumming noise, some say with
hollow trees, then burst forth into loud yells, which are well imitated by the
natives’ embryonic music. If a man has no spear, the Soko goes away
satisfied; but if wounded, he seizes the wrist, lops off the fingers and spits
them out, slaps the cheeks of his victim, and bites without breaking the
skin; he draws out a spear (but never uses it), and takes some leaves and
stuffs them into his wound to staunch the blood; he does not seek an
encounter with an armed man. He sees women do him no harm, and never
molests them; a man without a spear is nearly safe from him. Manyuema
say, ‘Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him.’ They live in communities of
about ten, each having his own female; an intruder from another camp is
beaten off with their fists and loud yells. If one tries to seize the female of
another, he is caught on the ground, and all unite in boxing and biting the
offender. A male often carries a child, especially if they are passing from
one patch of forest to another over a grassy space; he then gives it to the
mother.”
The “Last Journals” contains a portrait of a young Soko (reproduced on
page 47), which shows a short-armed, weak-legged, long-eared creature;
and in the engraving on page 48, the adults which are being hunted are
certainly very much shorter than the natives who are killing them. All that
can be said, then, is that possibly the Soko is a kind of Troglodyte, greatly
resembling the kind we have next to notice; but its geographical range is
most interesting. Its being found so many hundreds of miles from the Sierra
del Crystal, and beyond the woods of the coast-living Chimpanzees, would
appear to prove that formerly there were forest and jungle far away to the
east, where there are now plains, rivers, and lakes with much forest land.

THE TRUE CHIMPANZEE.[11]

CHIMPANZEE. (From a Sketch by Wolf, in the possession of the Zoological Society.)

The name Chimpanzee has sometimes been given to all the great Apes
just described, but reference has been made, in considering some points in
their anatomy and habits, to a particular animal which bears this name. This
one comes next to them in the descending order of the scale of beings, and
completes the number of the kinds of these man-shaped Apes of Equatorial
Africa. It is the animal, the young of which have frequently been brought to
England, where they have been celebrated for their gentle fun, romping
play, good climbing, and their ability to imitate many human habits—
clothes-wearing, tobacco-smoking, and tea-drinking especially. It is the
Chimpanzee of Chimpanzees, the young of which have such very human-
looking faces and most baby-like skulls. Being covered for the most part,
and especially on the top and sides of the head, with long black hairs, it is
called the Black Chimpanzee, or Troglodytes niger.
It was a sight worth seeing to be present in the Monkey House of the
Zoological Gardens, in London, when the keeper paid an early morning

visit to his attached friend, the Chimpanzee. If he was not quite awake, or
lazily inclined, and snugly covered up in his little wooden house, and the
keeper called him, a commotion was heard inside, and then a round little
figure with a large head came tumbling out, and rushed to the iron wicket.
He creeps along at a great rate on all-fours, but the body is half erect, for
the fore limbs are long, and the knuckles, or rather the back parts of the
second joints of the fingers, are allowed to touch the ground and support the
frame in front, whilst the elbows are kept straight. The hind legs, being
short, move one after the other as in a canter, and it is readily noticed that
although the feet touch the ground on their outer edges they can rest flat on
the soles.
There is much joyful recognition, and after he has put his arms around
the keeper’s neck, he enjoys being tickled and laid on his back in the straw.
Making grunts and little laughs, he shows his fine set of teeth, and his fine
hazel-coloured eyes twinkle with fun. Then he rushes off, tumbling head
over heels, scampers over the straw, and with a jump clasps one of the
horizontal wooden bars in the cage, and swings himself up and on to it with
an ease and grace which many a gymnast might envy. Running along this,
and just balancing himself with the assistance of the back of his hand, he
nears a rope, and then, after seizing it, swings with arms out at full length,
now catching hold of others or of the wire lattice-work with his feet and
toe-thumb, or suddenly coming to the ground with a great bounce. This is
usually preparatory to coming to the spectators, and he then squats down,
folds his arms, and moves his shoulders from side to side in a quick and
restless manner. Another scamper brings him to his house on the ground-
floor, into which he looks, and then taking a lot of biscuit, he gives a jump
on to its shelving top, sits down, and begins to eat. He sits upright enough,
and puts the biscuit into his mouth, but rather clumsily. He does not take it
between the tips of his fingers and the thumb, but between the thumb and
the side of the first finger, for the thumb is short. Hence, as the food
disappears, he appears to be cramming the knuckle of his first finger into
his mouth.[12]
One is struck with the colour of the face, which is nearly hairless, for
the tint of its skin is a dirty yellow-ochre; but it is relieved by the beautiful
white teeth, the hazel eyes, and the long hair which comes down from the
top of the head in front of the ear like a lock. The upper lip has no furrow

running down from the small and flat nose, but it is very large, and the
mouth looks like a slit in the face when both lips are together. He has
distinct eyelids; and when he sits and looks forwards, the chin reaches
below the top of the breast and hides the neck. The palm of the hands is
flesh-coloured, or darker, and the foot looks very strange, for the hair is
long over the ankle and very black, and it ceases suddenly, so that the heel
and all the sides and the sole are naked and flesh-tinted. The absence of hair
on the face—there being a little straggling beard only—is possibly an
ornament, and it is noticed in many Monkeys; but its absence from the
under part of the hand and foot, of course, is of use, for it gives a greater
power of grasp and a finer sense of touch. The front hair comes to a peak
over the forehead, and the curve on either side is as graceful as that of a
Queen’s Counsel’s wig; then it covers a broad low head, which looks very
big behind and decidedly over-burdened with two great ears, larger than
those of the Gorilla, and which are close neighbours to the high shoulders.
Long black hair, with the ears peering through, covers all the back and sides
of the head and the wide shoulders and very short neck, and is continued
down the back, which shows no sign of a waist, and only becomes smaller
just above the thighs. Here, then, is another instance of the frog-like body
shape, and it is produced by the same general internal arrangements which
have been noticed in the great Apes already described. That is to say, large
lungs, and a great stomach and digestive apparatus, are more important than
a slim and elegant figure; and good short back-bones, and at least thirteen
ribs on each side are more satisfactory possessions in an African forest than
long bones and a weak spine.
The arm, fore-arm, and fingers, as a limb, are long, and the tips of the
fingers reach just below the knee. This is consistent with the scheme of the
construction of the animal, and its adaptation for the forest life, which
requires the ability to move rapidly and also to climb very easily. The arms
are in constant movement when the Chimpanzee is walking, and if they are
not assisting in the motion they are uplifted, the head being, moreover,
carried a little forward with regard to the body. When the hands clasp a
cross-bar, the little use of the small thumb is readily noticed, and the body is
allowed to swing, as it were, at the full length of the arms, the thumb not
assisting in holding on. But when it climbs a pole, it grasps just like a man
under the same circumstances, and the thumb partly encircles the wood. It
is very curious to feel the grasp of the hand, and the vigorous squeeze that

the foot can give, and to look at the palms and soles. The palms seem very
wrinkled across, but not to have a ball under the thumb of any size, and they
seem narrow for their length. But although this is the case, and the thumb is
short, they assist in grasping very forcibly. All the fingers and the thumbs
have flat nails on them, which do not approach the character of a claw, and
corresponding nails are found on the feet. All the heel is naked, as if it came
through a hole in a stocking of black hair; and as a whole, the foot is shorter
than the hand, the third toe being the longest. The toe-thumb is easily
movable, and assists in climbing, for it grasps with the aid of the other toes
very readily. Like the other large Apes already mentioned, it has no calf,
and the legs seem to be too small for it, and to be stuck on to the body by
small hips. The roundness behind is wanting, and therefore the muscles
which particularly assist in the erect position are not large, as in man.
Yet at first sight there is something very human about the Chimpanzee;
it looks like a very old child, and doubtless this is increased by its gentle
habits and amiability; and there is every apology to be made for the early
geographers and anatomists, who called it the “Pigmie.”
One of the first living Chimpanzees which was brought to England took
strange dislikes to people. When it was brought on board the ship it would
give its hand to be shaken by some, but refused it to others of the sailors
with marks of anger, and it speedily became very familiar with the crew,
except with a boy, to whom it never became reconciled. When the seamen’s
mess was brought on deck, it was a constant attendant; it would go round
and embrace each person, while it uttered loud yells, and then seated itself
to enjoy the repast. If it was pleased at any favourite morsel, or if a piece of
sweetmeat was given to it, satisfaction was expressed by a sound like a
“hem,” in a grave tone; but if it was made angry or vexed, it would bark
like a dog or cry like a child, and scratch itself most vehemently. It was
active and cheerful in warm latitudes, but it became languid as it left the
Torrid Zone, so that a blanket had to be given it as the English Channel was
reached.
Bamboo, a Chimpanzee, once in the Zoological Society’s Gardens,
Regent’s Park, and the subject of the following sketch, by Lieut. Sayers,
“was purchased from a Mandingo, at Sierra Leone, who related that he had
captured him in the Bullom country some months before, having first shot
the mother, on which occasions the young ones never fail to remain by their

wounded parents. On becoming mine, he was delivered over to a black boy,
my servant, and in a few days became so attached to him as to be
exceedingly troublesome, screaming and throwing himself into the most
violent passion if he attempted to leave him for a moment. He evinced also
a most strange affection for clothes, never omitting an opportunity of
possessing himself of the first garment he came across, whenever he had the
means of entering my apartment. He carried it immediately to the piazza,
where invariably he seated himself on it with a self-satisfied grunt; nor
would he resign it without a hard fight, and, on being worsted, exhibited
every symptom of the greatest anger. Observing this strange fancy, I
procured him a piece of cotton cloth, which, much to the amusement of all
who saw him, he was never without, carrying it with him wherever he went,
nor could any temptation induce him to resign it even for a moment. Totally
unacquainted with their mode of living in the wild state, I adopted the
following method of feeding him, which has appeared to succeed
admirably. In the morning, at eight o’clock, he received a piece of bread,
about the size of a halfpenny loaf, steeped in water or milk and water; about
two, a couple of bananas or plantains; and before he retired for the night, a
banana, orange, or slice of pine-apple. The banana appeared to be his
favourite fruit; for it he would forsake all other viands, and if not gratified,
would exhibit the utmost petulance. On one occasion I deemed it necessary
to refuse him one, considering that he had already eaten a sufficiency, upon
which he threw himself into the most violent passion, and uttering a
piercing cry, knocked his head with such violence against the wall as to
throw himself on his back, then ascending a chest which was near, wildly
threw his arms into the air and precipitated himself from it. These actions so
alarmed me for his safety that I gave up the contest, and on doing so he
evinced the greatest satisfaction at his victory, uttering for several minutes
the most expressive grunts and cries; in short, he exhibited, on all occasions
when his will was opposed, the impatient temper of a spoilt child; but even
in the height of passion I never observed any disposition to bite or
otherwise ill-treat his keeper or myself.

VILLAGE IN THE GABOON COUNTRY.

SICK ORANG-UTAN.

“Although he would never object to be caressed or nursed by even a
stranger, yet I never saw him evince the slightest disposition to make the
acquaintance of any other animal. At the time he came into my possession I
had two Patas Monkeys, and thinking they might become acquainted, I
placed Mr. Bamboo in the same apartment, where he resided for five

months, yet I never saw the least desire on his part to become even friendly;
on the contrary, he showed evident anger and dislike at their approach. This
strange attachment to the human race, and manifest dislike to all others, I
have considered one of the most extraordinary features of this genus. His
cunning was also remarkable. On all occasions when he thought he was
unobserved, he would not fail to steal everything within his reach, for no
other apparent purpose than to gratify a propensity for thieving; did he,
however, even think you were looking at him, he would wait his
opportunity with the greatest patience before he commenced depredation. In
his habits, unlike the Monkey tribe, he was exceedingly cleanly, never
soiling his bed or any place near it; and even on board ship (during the
warm weather) he never failed to seek the deck, unassisted, whenever time
calls of nature required it. On being left by himself in his piazza he would
invariably seat himself on the window-sill, which was the highest point he
could attain, and commanded a view of the barrack-yard as well as the
interior of my bedroom; but at sunset he would descend, enter a washing-
tub, which he had of his own accord chosen as a sleeping-place, and remain
there all night; as soon, however, as the sun rose, he would never fail to
occupy his favourite position on the window-ledge. From this, I should say,
that trees are ascended by the Chimpanzee merely for observation or food,
and that they live principally on the ground. Bamboo, at the time of
purchase, appeared to be about fourteen months old, and from what I could
learn from the natives, they do not reach their full growth till between nine
and ten years of age; which, if true, brings them extremely near the human
species, as the boy or girl of West Africa, at thirteen or fourteen years old, is
quite as much a man or woman as those of nineteen or twenty in our more
northern clime. Their height, when full grown, is said to be between four
and five feet; indeed, I was credibly informed that a male Chimpanzee,
which had been shot in the neighbourhood and brought into Free Town,
measured four feet five inches in length, and was so heavy as to form a very
fair load for two men, who carried him on a pole between them. The natives
say that in their wild state their strength is enormous, and that they have
seen them snap boughs off the trees with the greatest apparent ease, which
the united strength of two men could scarcely bend. The Chimpanzee is,
without doubt, to be found in all the countries, from the banks of the
Gambia in the north to the kingdom of Congo in the south, as the natives of
all the intermediate parts seem to be perfectly acquainted with them. From

my own experience, I can state that the low shores of the Bullom country,
situated on the northern shores of the river near Sierra Leone, are infested
by them in numbers quite equal to the commonest species of Monkeys. I
consider these animals to be gregarious; for when visiting the rice farms of
the Chief Dalla Mohammadoo, on the Bullom shore, their cries plainly
indicated the vicinity of a troop, as the noise heard could not have been
produced by less than eight or ten of them. The natives also affirmed that
they always travel in strong bodies, armed with sticks, which they use with
much dexterity. They are exceedingly watchful; and the first one who
discovers the approach of a stranger utters a protracted cry, much
resembling that of a human being in the greatest distress. The first time I
heard it I was much startled; the animal was apparently not more than thirty
paces distant, but had it been but five I could not have seen it, from the
tangled nature of the jungle, and I certainly conceived that such sounds
could only have proceeded from a human being, who hoped to gain
assistance by his cries from some terrible and instant death. The native who
was with me laid his hand upon my shoulder, and pointing suspiciously to
the bush, said, ‘Massa, Baboo live there!’ and in a few minutes the wood
appeared alive with them, their cries resembling the barking of dogs. My
guide informed me that the cry first heard was to inform the troop of my
approach, and that they would all immediately leave the trees, or any
exalted situation that might expose them to view, and seek the bush; he also
showed evident fear, and entreated me not to proceed any further in that
direction. The plantations of bananas, pampaws, and plantains, which the
natives usually intermix with their rice, constituting the favourite food of
the Chimpanzee, account for their being so frequent in the neighbourhood
of rice fields. The difficulty of procuring live specimens of this genus arises
principally, I should say, from the superstitions of the natives concerning
them, who believe they possess the power of ‘witching.’”
A most interesting little male Chimpanzee was obtained from the
natives of the Gambia coast some years since, and became famous in
London for its great intelligence and human-like conduct. His mother was
shot when he was about a twelvemonth old, about 120 miles from the sea;
and after being well taken care of he was sent to England on board ship,
where he had a free range of the rigging and decks, and where he made
himself much liked. A distinguished zoologist, Mr. Broderip, visited him in

the Zoological Gardens after he had undergone some tuition, and describes
what he saw as follows:—
“I saw him for the first time in the kitchen belonging to the keepers’
apartments, dressed in a little Guernsey shirt, or banyan jacket. He was
sitting child-like in the lap of a good old woman, to whom he clung
whenever she made show of putting him down. His aspect was mild and
passive, but that of a little withered old man, and his large eyes, hairless and
crimpled visage, and man-like ears, surmounted by the black hair of his
head, rendered the resemblance very striking, notwithstanding the
depressed nose and the projecting mouth. He had already become very fond
of his good old nurse, and she had evidently become attached to her
nursling, although they had only been acquainted for three or four days, and
it was with difficulty that he permitted her to go away to do her work in
another part of the building. On her lap he was perfectly at his ease, and it
seemed to me that he considered her as occupying the place of his mother.
He was constantly reaching up with his hand to the fold of her neckerchief,
though when he did so she checked him, saying, ‘No, Tommy, you must not
pull the pin out.’ When not otherwise occupied, he would sit quietly in her
lap, pulling his toes about with his fingers, with the same passive air as a
human child exhibits when amusing himself in the same manner. I wished
to examine his teeth; and when his nurse, in order to make him open his
mouth, threw him back in her arm and tickled him just as she would a child,
the caricature was complete.
“I offered him my ungloved hand. He took it mildly in his, with a
manner equally exempt from forwardness and fear, examined it with his
eyes, and perceiving a ring on one of my fingers, submitted that, and that
only, to a very cautious and gentle examination with his teeth, so as not to
leave any mark on the ring. I then offered him my other hand with the glove
on. This he felt, looked at it, turned it about, and then tried it with his teeth.
At length it became necessary for his kind nurse to leave him, and after
much remonstrance on his part she put him on the floor. He would not leave
her, however, and walked nearly erect by her side, holding by her gown just
like a child. At last she got him away by offering him a peeled raw potato,
which he ate with great relish, holding it in his right hand. His keeper, who
is very attentive to him, then made his appearance, and spoke to him.
Tommy evidently made an attempt to speak, gesticulating as he stood erect,

protruding his lips, and making a hoarse noise like ‘hoo! hoo!’ He soon
showed a disposition to play with me, jumping on his lower extremities
opposite to me like a child, and looking at me with an expression indicating
a wish for a game at romps. I confess I complied, and a capital game we
had. On another occasion, and when he had become familiar with me, I
caused, in the midst of his play, a looking-glass to be brought and held
before him. His attention was constantly and strongly arrested: from the
utmost activity he became immovably fixed, steadfastly gazing at the mirror
with eagerness, and something like wonder depicted in his face. He at
length looked up at me, then again gazed at the glass. The tips of my fingers
appeared on one side as I held it; he put his hands and then his lips to them,
then looked behind the glass, and finally passed his hands behind it,
evidently to feel if there were anything substantial there. I presented him
with a cocoa-nut, to the shell of which some bark was still adhering; the
tender bud was just beginning to shoot forth—this he immediately bit off
and ate. He then stripped off some of the bark with his teeth, moving it by
the crust of adhering fibres round his head, darted it down, and repeatedly
jumped on it with all his weight. A hole was bored in one of the eyes, and
the nut again given to him, and he immediately held it up with the aperture
downwards, applied his mouth to it, and sucked away at what milk there
was with great glee. As I was making notes with a paper and pencil, he
came up and looked at me inquisitively, testing the pencil with his teeth
when he had it given to him. A trial was made of the little fellow’s courage;
for when his attention was directed elsewhere, a hamper containing a large
snake, called Python, was brought in and placed on a chair near the dresser.
The lid was raised, and the basket in which the snake was enveloped was
opened, and soon after Tommy came gambolling that way. As he jumped
and danced along the dresser towards the basket he was all gaiety and life;
suddenly he seemed to be taken aback, stopped, and cautiously advanced
towards the basket, peered or rather craned over it, and constantly, with a
gesture of horror and aversion and the cry of ‘hoo! hoo!’ recoiled from the
detested object, jumped back as far as he could, and then sprang to his
keeper for protection. Tommy does not like confinement, and when he is
shut up in his cage, the violence with which he pulls at and shakes the door
is very great, and shows considerable strength; but I have never seen him
use this exertion against any other part of the cage, though his keeper has
endeavoured to induce him to do so, in order to see whether he would make

the distinction. When at liberty he is extremely playful; and in his high
jinks, I saw him toddle into a corner where an unlucky bitch was lying with
a litter of very young pups, and lay hold of one of them, till the snarling of
the mother and the cries of the keeper made him put the pup down. He then
climbed up to the top of the cage where the Marmosets were, and jumped
furiously upon it, evidently to astonish the inmates, who huddled together,
looking up at the dreadful creature over their heads. Then he went to a
window, opened it and looked out. I was afraid that he might make his
escape; but the words ‘Tommy, No!’ pronounced by the keeper in a mild but
firm tone, caused him to shut the window and to come away. He is, in truth,
a most docile and affectionate animal, and it is impossible not to be taken
with the expressive gestures and looks with which he courts your good
opinion, and throws himself upon you for protection against annoyance.”
Whether they grow cross and savage as they get old is not known, for
no adults have been kept in captivity, but as this is usual in other Monkeys,
it is probable that their interesting time of life is that of childhood, and that
when the age of fun and tricks has passed there is not much else but
brutality left.
Little or nothing reliable is known about the habits of the adults, and all
the wickednesses of Gorillas and Baboons have been attributed to them,
and, in fact, the very same stories will do for any one of them.
These stories have, however, been believed; and even Cuvier, the great
comparative anatomist, wrote, that the Chimpanzees live in troops,
construct themselves huts of leaves, arm themselves with sticks and stones,
and employ these weapons to drive away men and Elephants from their
dwellings. They did not, he believed, scruple to attack the Lion, and they
were exceedingly impolite to negresses in general.
As they all, except possibly the Soko, live in a district where the forests
are dense and close, there is no doubt they are rarely seen; and indeed
reliable travellers do not hesitate to say that a white man has never seen
them in a state of nature, except by obtaining a glance as they rush off on
being surprised. All the stories must, therefore, be received with suspicion,
as tainted with the results of African fear and love of the wonderful;
especially as they come from the negro race living in the remarkable tract of
country extending along the West Coast from the river Gambia to some

distance north of Angola, and thence into the interior to the little known
regions between the hills which run parallel with the sea many miles inland,
and the country of the large lakes far away to the East.
Gifted with wonderful agility and no little power of imitation and
intelligence, and possessed of very acute senses and ability to unite the
actions of many groups of muscles to a common purpose, the Chimpanzee
must have a well-formed nervous system—that is to say, a good brain and
spinal cord. A brain to originate or commence actions, and the cord of
nerves to carry the orders of the brain to the limbs. Measured over the brain
case of the skull, that of the Chimpanzee has a bulk of about one-half of
that of man, and less than that of the Gorilla; but the brain itself has striking
resemblances to that of man. The principal folds which are noticed on the
human brain exist in the Chimpanzee, but they are simpler in their foldings,
and are large in proportion to the whole. This means that there is not as
much nerve structure packed in a given space as there is in man; and the
distinction is most important, for the greater the packing the greater the
nervous energy and power. But the parts of the brain which have especially
to do with the movements of the body, and their regulations and
adaptations, are very well formed; and it is the comparative deficiency in
those parts which have a mysterious relation with the intelligence, instinct,
and the mind which causes the brain of the Chimpanzee to differ in
appearance and size from that of man. But in both the brain proper over-
laps and covers the cerebellum or little brain. The nerves are well formed
and large.
It seems that the brain of the Chimpanzee never has a chance of
increasing in size, for after a certain age the bones of the brain case become,
as it were, soldered together.
The Chimpanzee has a famous pair of shoulders, a broad back, and, like
the Gorilla, a very short neck. Its weight is less than that of the greatest of
Apes, and therefore it does not require such huge muscles for climbing. The
great bony spines of the neck-bones are smaller; and the bones of the upper
part of the spine are not made as strongly.
Loving much to hang by the hands, with the arms stretched out above
the head, the Chimpanzee has the blade-bone more like that of an ordinary
Monkey, and less like that of man and the Gorilla, and its muscles are so

placed as to permit of their acting readily when this position is kept up. As
this position is extremely easy and useful, it is assisted by the animal’s
having a short and stout collar-bone. Its arm-bone is tolerably near the
length of that of man, but it is like a Gorilla’s in miniature. The bones of the
fore-arm (the radius and ulna), instead of being shorter than the arm-bone,
equal it in length, and the last named is much bent, so as to give a large
surface for the muscles which supply the hand and wrist.
As a whole, the hand of the Chimpanzee is, in proportion to the size of
the animal, larger than 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 each 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 vertebræ), 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. Now, 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 has 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
BRAIN OF CHIMPANZEE. Chimpanzee.
Where the proper vertebræ 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
(vertebræ); 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, has
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. This 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 extremely 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. Moreover, it has a uvula in the back of the throat, and the
back of the tongue is marked with great papillæ, which take up the shape of
a T. It does not do more than grunt “hem,” and bark after a fashion; and the
use of some great air-pouches, which resemble those of the Gorilla, are
therefore not very apparent. But the bony structures of the palate are
interesting, for at the back of it they do not form a simple knob, as in the
Gorilla, but resemble those of man, and there is a little prominence, with a
festoon curve on each side.
It lives upon vegetable food, and its teeth are admirably suited for it;
they are of the same number as those of the rest of the great man-shaped
Apes, and do not differ very much from them. The front teeth are large, and
project, and do not bite very up and down on the tips, so they wear behind
quicker than in front, their general shape being rather peculiar and
distinctive. Female Chimpanzees have smaller eye-teeth than the males, and
all have them with a sharp edge behind, so that they can cut a pine-apple as
well as pierce it. Behind them are the pre-and true molars, but the last tooth
of the upper jaw looks small, for its hinder projections or cusps are small. In
the lower jaw the last tooth has a fifth cusp, but it is smaller proportionately
than in the lower Monkeys; and the first pre-molar has its front and outer
angle stuck out very much after the fashion of the Baboons. Now these are
little matters, which do not appear to have anything to do with causes and
effects, the adaptation of means to ends, or which do not enable the creature
to chew and crush its food a bit the less well, or better than others; they
refer to some hidden mystery which unites apparently very different
animals together in the scheme of creation. Thus the Chimpanzee has
human-like, Gorilla-like, Baboon-like, and other Monkey-like peculiarities,
so far as the teeth are concerned, and yet which do not interfere with the
successful mastication of the food. We may make theories about them of
supreme interest, which may explain why animals are alike and unlike, and
how the structures of superior animals were foreshadowed in those of lower
ones, and the structures of the latter in those of still simpler forms of life.
It is the great front teeth, the large space hidden by the visible nose, the
prominent upper, and the great length of the lower jaw, which give such a

Baboon-like appearance to the face of the Chimpanzee’s skull; and this is
interesting, for there may have been a kinship between the two tribes.
These man-shaped Apes, the Gorilla, the Nschiego Mbouvé, the Koolo-
Kamba, the Soko, and the Chimpanzee, form a group of beings which is
peculiarly situated geographically, and which is separated from all others by
anatomical differences. Their home is in Equatorial Africa, from the
Western Sea to the Great Lakes near the eastern side of the Continent, and
none of the kinds composing it have ever been found out of this range.
Their bones have not been found in caves or in the state of fossils
anywhere, so they must be regarded as essentially African. The group clings
to forest and jungle, and its members lead very much the same kind of lives,
for they are all vegetarians, liking quietude, and either roaming singly or in
pairs, or living in troops. There is no evidence whatever that any of these
species of Troglodytes have ever wandered; and it must be admitted that
they have lived where they are now found ever since the country has been
as it is, as regards its physical geography and peculiar climate. As regards
their anatomical distinctness from other beings, they may be separated from
man on the one hand, and from the Monkeys, which form the subject of the
next chapters, on the other. They are linked together as a group by many
resemblances in their construction, although there are differences enough to
distinguish kind from kind. From man they one and all differ in the shape of
the head, the size of the brain case, the nature of the palate, the shape of the
jaws, and in the last lower molar teeth and tooth-spaces. Their head-ridges,
the shape and length of their limbs, and the nature of their thumbs and toe-
thumbs are very distinctive. The great air-pouches, the shape of the chest,
the extra ribs, and the shape of the hip-girdle, cause them to differ much
from man; and their brain is, as it were, dwarfed and infantile.[13]

CHAPTER III.
THE MAN-SHAPED APES (continued)—Genus Simia—THE ORANG-UTAN.

Origin of the Name—Description of the Orang—Rajah Brooke’s First Specimen—Mr.
Wallace’s Experiences in Mias Hunting—The Home of the Mias—A Mias at Bay—
Their Nests, Habits, Food, and Localities—Different kinds of Orangs—Structural
Points—The Intelligence and Habits of the Young—The Brain and its Case—
Resemblances and Differences of Old and Young

THE ORANG-UTAN.[14]

THE Malays call their chiefs Orangs, and the word relates to the
intelligence of those called by it, meaning “a rational being.” They apply it
also to their Elephants, and to the great Ape of Sumatra and Borneo. Utan,
or as some spell it, Oetan (utang being wrong), means wild, or “of the
woods;” and hence the conjoined words may be translated by what the
natives really mean, “the wild man of the wood.” There are two kinds of
Orang-utan, and both are, to a certain extent, man-like, the resemblance
being greatest in the females and in the young, and diminishing as the males
grow older.
All have long ruddy-brown hair, the tinge being decidedly red, a dark
face, with small eyes, small nose, and great projecting jaws. The hair comes
over the forehead and backwards over the neck; it is long on the limbs, and
points downwards on the upper and upwards on the lower arm. It covers the
back, and seat, and legs, standing out often, and gives a very wiry look to
the fur. What strikes one directly on looking at a well-stuffed specimen of
an old male, for instance, is the great length of the fore-limbs, which reach
far towards the ankle, the length of the muzzle, and the extraordinary
breadth of the face under the eyes, where the flatness resembles a mask
more than a natural growth. In the females and young this growth of the
cheek-bone and its covering of fat and skin are not seen; and it appears to
be a mark of male beauty, as are also two sets of ridges on the skull, which
greatly resemble those of the Gorilla.

Rajah Brooke, whose name will always be associated with Borneo, took
great interest in Orang-utan hunting, principally with a view to decide how
many kinds there were; and his first impressions on killing his first large
one were excited by the prominent peculiarities just noticed. The first male
he killed was seated lazily on a tree, and when the people approached he
only took the trouble to hide behind the trunk, peeping first on one side and
then on the other, and “dodging,” as the Rajah did the same. He was
wounded in the wrist, and afterwards was despatched. The Rajah wrote to
the Zoological Society of London as follows:—“Great was our triumph as
we gazed on the huge animal dead at our feet, and proud were we of having
shot the first Orang we had seen, and shot him in his native woods, in a
Borneo forest hitherto untrodden by European feet. We were struck with the
length of his arms, the enormous neck, the expanse of face, which
altogether gave the impression of great height, whereas it was only great
power. The hair was long, reddish, and thin; the face remarkably broad and
fleshy, and on each side, in the place of a man’s whiskers, were the
callosities, or rather fleshy protuberances, which I was so desirous to see,
and which were nearly two inches in thickness. The ears were small and
well shaped, the nose quite flat, the mouth prominent, the lips thick, the
eyes small and roundish, the teeth large and discoloured, the face and hands
black—these last being very powerful. This animal was four feet one inch
in height, and its fore limb was three feet five inches and three-quarters in
length; the width of the face, moreover, being as much as one foot one
inch.”
“Whilst the fore limb was so long, the lower limb, from the hip to the
heel, only measured one foot nine inches; and hence there is great
disproportion between the limbs, the legs and feet appearing dwarfed in
comparison.”
The Rajah considered the Orangs to be as dull and slothful as one could
conceive, and on no occasion, when pursuing them, did they move so fast
as to preclude his keeping pace with them easily through a moderately clear
forest, and even when obstructions below (such as wading up to the neck)
enabled them to get away some distance, they were sure to stop and allow
the hunters to come up. He never observed any attempt at defiance; and the
wood which sometimes rattled about his ears was broken by their weight,
and not thrown down, as some people imagine to be the case.

If pushed to extremity, the large male with crests on its head (which is
called “Pappan”), could be formidable; and one unfortunate man, who, with
a party, was trying to catch a large one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides
being severely bitten in the face, whilst the animal finally beat off its
pursuers. When the natives wish to catch an adult, they cut down a circle of
trees round the one on which he is seated, and then fell that also, and close
before he can recover himself, and try to bind him. The Rajah also notices
the little dread the natives have of them, and that they form seats rather than
nests in the trees.
These observations regarding their habits have been slightly opposed by
Mr. Wallace, whose descriptions of Orang—or, as he prefers to call it, from
the Dyak language, Mias—hunting and of their habits are undoubtedly the
most reliable.
Wallace spent a long time in the islands of Borneo, Java, and Sumatra;
and one of his principal objects in visiting the first especially was to obtain
an insight as to the nature and life of the great man-like Apes of the country.
After some time spent in hunting, he succeeded in shooting a full-grown
male Orang-utan, and he describes the scene as follows:—

ORANG-UTANS.
❏
LARGER IMAGE

“I had just come home from an entomologising excursion, when Charles
rushed in, out of breath with running and excitement, and exclaimed,
interrupted by gasps, ‘Get the gun, sir—be quick—such a large Mias!’
‘Where is it?’ I asked, taking hold of my gun as I spoke, which happened

luckily to have one barrel loaded with ball. ‘Close by, sir—on the path to
the mines; he can’t get away.’ Two Dyaks chanced to be in the house at the
time, so I called them to accompany me, and started off, telling Charley to
bring all the ammunition after me as soon as possible. The path from our
clearing to the mines led along the side of the hill, a little way up its slope,
and parallel with it at the foot a wide opening had been made for a road, in
which several Chinamen were working, so that the animal could not escape
into the swampy forest below without descending to cross the road, or
ascending to get round the clearing. We walked cautiously along, not
making the least noise, and listening attentively for any sound which might
betray the presence of the Mias, stopping at intervals to gaze upwards.
Charley soon joined us at the place where he had seen the creature, and
having taken the ammunition, and put a bullet in the other barrel, we
dispersed a little, feeling sure that it must be somewhere near, as it had
probably descended the hill, and would not be likely to return again. After a
short time I heard a very slight rustling sound overhead, but on gazing up
could see nothing. I moved about in every direction, to get a full view into
every part of the tree under which I had been standing, when I again heard
the same noise, but louder, and saw the leaves shaking, as if caused by the
motion of some heavy animal, which moved off to an adjoining tree. I
immediately shouted for all of them to come up and try and get a view, so
as to allow me to have a shot. This was not an easy matter, as the Mias had
a knack of selecting places with dense foliage beneath. Very soon, however,
one of the Dyaks called me and pointed upwards, and on looking I saw a
great red hairy body and a huge black face gazing down from a great height,
as if wanting to know what was making such a disturbance below. I
instantly fired, and he made off at once, so that I could not then tell whether
I had hit him. He now moved very rapidly and very noiselessly for so large
an animal, so I told the Dyaks to follow and keep him in sight while I
loaded. The jungle was here full of large angular fragments of rock from the
mountain above, and thick with hanging and twisting creepers. Running,
climbing, and creeping among these, we came up with the creature on the
top of a high tree near the road, where the Chinamen had discovered him,
and were shouting their astonishment with open mouth: ‘Ya, ya, Tuan!
Orang-utan, Tuan!’ Seeing that he could not pass here without descending,
he turned up again towards the hill, and I got two shots, and following
quickly had two more by the time he had again reached the path; but he was

almost more or less concealed by foliage, and protected by the large branch
on which he was walking. Once while loading I had a splendid view of him,
moving along a large limb of a tree in a semi-erect posture, and showing
him to be an animal of the largest size. At the path he got on to one of the
loftiest trees in the forest, and we could see one leg hanging down useless,
having been broken by a ball. He now fixed himself in a fork, where he was
hidden by thick foliage, and seemed disinclined to move. I was afraid he
would remain and die in this position, and as it was nearly evening I could
not have got the tree cut down that day. I therefore fired again, and he then
moved off, and going up the hill was obliged to get on to some lower trees,
on the branches of one of which he fixed himself in such a position that he
could not fall, and lay all in a heap, as if dead or dying. I now wanted the
Dyaks to go up and cut off the branch he was resting on, but they were
afraid, saying he was not dead, and would come and attack them. We then
shook the adjoining tree, pulled the hanging creepers, and did all we could
to disturb him, but without effect; so I thought it best to send for two
Chinamen with axes to cut down the tree. While the messenger was gone,
however, one of the Dyaks took courage and climbed towards him, but the
Mias did not wait for him to get near, moving off to another tree, where he
got on to a dense mass of branches and creepers, which almost completely
hid him from our view. The tree was luckily a small one, so when the axes
came we soon had it cut through; but it was so held up by jungle ropes and
climbers to adjoining trees that it only fell into a sloping position. The Mias
did not move, and I began to fear that, after all, we should not get him, as it
was near evening, and half-a-dozen more trees would have to be cut down
before the one he was on would fall. As a last resource we all began pulling
at the creepers, which shook the tree very much; and, after a few minutes,
when we had almost given up all hopes, down he came with a crash and a
thud like the fall of a giant. And he was a giant, his head and body being
full as large as a man’s. He was of the kind called by the Dyaks ‘Mias
Chapyian,’ or ‘Mias Pappan,’ which has the skin of the face broadened out
to a ridge or fold at each side. His outstretched arms measured seven feet
three inches across, and his height, measuring fairly from the top of the
head to the heel, was four feet two inches. The body just below the arms
was three feet two inches round, and was quite as long as a man’s, the legs
being exceedingly short in proportion. On examination we found he had
been dreadfully wounded. Both legs were broken, one hip-joint and the root

of the spine completely shattered, and two bullets were found flattened in
his neck and jaws; yet he was still alive when he fell. The two Chinamen
carried him home tied to a pole; and I was occupied with Charley the whole
of the next day, preparing the skin and boiling the bones, to make a perfect
skeleton, which are now preserved in the museum at Derby.”

FRONT AND SIDE FACE OF THE ORANG.

The following description from the same author gives an excellent idea
of the nature of the country inhabited by another Orang, and of its Monkey
companions:—
“After a few miles, the stream became very narrow and winding, and
the whole country on each side was flooded. On the banks were abundance
of Monkeys—the common Macacus cynomolgus, a black Semnopithecus,
and the extraordinary Long-nosed Monkey (Nasalis larvatus), which is as
large as a three-year-old child, has a very long tail, and a fleshy nose, longer
than that of the biggest-nosed man. The further we went on the narrower
and more winding the stream became; fallen trees sometimes blocked up
our passage, and sometimes tangled branches and creepers met completely
across it, and had to be cut away before we could get on. It took us two days
to reach Semábanga, and we hardly saw a bit of dry land all the way. In the
latter part of the journey I could touch the bushes on each side for miles;
and we were often delayed by the screw-pines (Pandanus) which grew

abundantly in the water, falling across the stream. In other places dense
rafts of floating grass completely filled up the channel, making our journey
a constant succession of difficulties. The mountain or hill was close by,
covered with a complete forest of fruit-trees, among which the Durion and
Mangosteen were very abundant; but the fruit was not yet quite ripe, except
a little here and there. I spent a week at this place, going out every day in
various directions about the mountain, accompanied by a Malay, who had
stayed with me while the other boatmen returned. For three days we found
no Orangs, but shot a Deer and several Monkeys. On the fourth day,
however, we found a Mias feeding on a very lofty Durion tree, and
succeeded in killing it, after eight shots. Unfortunately it remained in the
tree, hanging by its hands, and we were obliged to leave it and return home,
as it was several miles off. As I felt pretty sure it would fall during the
night, I returned to the place early the next morning, and found it on the
ground beneath the tree. To my astonishment and pleasure, it appeared to be
a different kind from any I had yet seen; for although a full-grown male, by
its fully-developed teeth and very large canines, it had no sign of the lateral
protuberance on the face, and was about one-tenth smaller than the other
adult males. The upper incisors, however, appeared to be broader than in the
larger species, a character distinguishing the Simia morio of Professor
Owen, which he has described from the skull of a female specimen. As it
was too far to carry the animal home, I set to work and skinned the body on
the spot, leaving the head, hands, and feet attached, to be finished at home.
This specimen is now in the British Museum.”
The Mias, as stated by Rajah Brooke, will turn upon an antagonist when
hard pressed, and with no small bravery and ferocity; and this was
satisfactorily proved by Mr. Wallace, who tells the following story:—
“About ten days after this, on June 4th, some Dyaks came to tell me that
the day before a Mias had nearly killed one of their companions. A few
miles down the river there is a Dyak house, and the inhabitants saw a large
Orang feeding on the young shoots of a palm by the river side. On being
alarmed he retreated towards the jungle, which was close by, and a number
of the men, armed with spears and choppers, ran out to intercept him. The
man who was in front tried to run his spear through the animal’s body, but
the Mias seized it in his hands, and in an instant got hold of the man’s arm,
which he seized in his mouth, making his teeth meet in the flesh above the

elbow, which he tore and lacerated in a dreadful manner. Had not the others
been close behind, the man would have been more seriously injured, if not
killed, as he was quite powerless; but they soon destroyed the creature with
their spears and choppers. The man remained ill for a long time, and never
fully recovered the use of his arm. They told me the dead Mias was still
lying where it had been killed, so I offered them a reward to bring it up to
our landing-place immediately, which they promised to do. They did not
come, however, till the next day, and then decomposition had commenced,
and great patches of the hair came off, so that it was useless to skin it. This I
regretted much, as it was a very fine, full-grown male. I cut off the head and
took it home to clean, while I got my men to make a close fence, about five
feet high, round the rest of the body, which would soon be devoured by
maggots, small lizards, and ants, leaving me the skeleton.”
On another occasion Mr. Wallace had an opportunity of observing the
nest, or rather nest-making, which is performed by these animals when
severely wounded. “He was called by a Chinaman working in Borneo to
shoot a Mias which, he said, was on a tree close by his house at the coal-
mines. Arriving at the place, we had some difficulty in finding the animal,
as he had gone off into the jungle, which was very rocky and difficult to
traverse. At last we found him up a very high tree, and could see that he was
a male of the largest size. As soon as I had fired, he moved higher up the
tree, and while he was doing so I fired again; and we then saw that one arm
was broken. He had now reached the very highest part of an immense tree,
and immediately began breaking off boughs all around, and laying them
across and across to make a nest. It was very interesting to see how well he
had chosen his place, and how rapidly he stretched out his unwounded arm
in every direction, breaking off good-sized boughs with the greatest ease,
and laying them back across each other, so that in a few minutes he had
formed a compact mass of foliage, which entirely concealed him from our
sight. He was evidently going to pass the night here, and would probably
get away early the next morning, if not wounded too severely. I therefore
fired again several times, in hopes of making him leave his nest; but, though
I felt sure I had hit him, as at each shot he moved a little, he would not go
away. At length he raised himself up, so that half his body was visible, and
then gradually sank down, his head alone remaining on the edge of the nest.
I now felt sure he was dead, and tried to persuade the Chinaman and his
companion to cut down the tree; but it was a very large one, and they had

been at work all day, and nothing would induce them to attempt it. The next
morning, at daybreak, I came to the place, and found that the Mias was
evidently dead, as his head was visible in exactly the same position as
before.”
There is every reason to believe that the Mias, or Orang-utan, is
confined to the two great islands of Sumatra and Borneo, in the former of
which, however, it seems to be much more rare. In Borneo it has a wide
range, inhabiting many districts on the south-west, south-east, north-east,
and north-west coasts, but appears to be chiefly confined to the low and
swampy forests. It seems, at first sight, very inexplicable that the Mias
should be quite unknown in the Saráwak valley, while it is abundant in
Sambas, on the west, and Sádong, on the east; but when we know the habits
and mode of life of the animal, we see a sufficient reason for this apparent
anomaly in the physical features of the Saráwak district. Where Mr. Wallace
observed the Mias it was where the country is low, level, and swampy, and
at the same time covered with a lofty virgin forest. Many isolated
mountains, on some of which the Dyaks have settled, are close by, and are
covered with plantations of fruit-trees. These are a great attraction to the
Mias, which comes to feed on the fruits, but always retires to the swamp at
night. When the country becomes slightly elevated, and the soil dry, the
Mias is no longer to be found. For example, in all the lower parts of the
Sádong valley it abounds, but as soon as we ascend above the limits of the
tides, where the country, though still flat, is high enough to be dry, it
disappears. Now, the Saráwak valley has this peculiarity: the lower portion,
though swampy, is not covered with continuous lofty forests, but is
principally occupied by the Nipa palm; and near the town of Saráwak,
where the country becomes dry, it is greatly undulated in many parts, and
covered with small patches of virgin forest and much second-growth jungle,
on ground which has once been cultivated by the Malays or Dyaks. “Now it
seems to me,” writes the same author, “that a wide extent of unbroken and
equally lofty virgin forest is necessary to the comfortable existence of these
animals. Such forests form their open country, where they can roam in
every direction, with as much facility as the Indian on the prairie or the
Arab on the desert; passing from tree-top to tree-top without ever being
obliged to descend upon the earth. The elevated and the drier districts are
more frequented by man, and are more cut up by clearings and low second-
growth jungle. They are not adapted to its peculiar mode of progression,

and they would be more exposed to danger, and more frequently obliged to
descend upon the earth in such places. There is probably also a greater
variety of fruit in the Mias district, the small mountains which rise like
islands out of it serving as a sort of gardens or plantations. It is a singular
and very interesting sight to watch a Mias making his way leisurely through
the forest. He walks deliberately along some of the larger branches in the
semi-erect attitude, which the great length of his arms and the shortness of
his legs cause him naturally to assume; and the disproportion between these
limbs is increased by his walking on his knuckles, not on the palm of the
hand, as we should do. He seems always to choose those branches which
intermingle with an adjoining tree, on approaching which he stretches out
his long arms, and seizing the opposing boughs, grasps them together with
both hands, seems to try their strength, and then deliberately swings himself
across to the next branch on which he walks along as before. He never
jumps or springs, or even appears to hurry himself, and yet manages to get
along almost as quickly as a person can run through the forest beneath. The
long and powerful arms are of the greatest use to the animal, enabling it to
climb easily up the loftiest trees, to seize fruits and young leaves from
slender boughs which will not bear its weight, and to gather leaves and
branches with which to form its nest.”

ORANG AT BAY.

FAMILY OF ORANG-UTANS.

Mr. Wallace, who described how it forms a nest when wounded, states
“that it uses a similar one to sleep in almost every night. This is placed low
down, however, on a small tree, not more than from twenty to fifty feet
from the ground, probably because it is warmer and less exposed to wind
than higher up. Each Mias is said to make a fresh one for himself every
night; but I should think that is hardly probable, or their remains would be
much more abundant; for though I saw several about the coal-mines, there
must have been many Orangs about every day, and in a year their deserted
nests would become very numerous. The Dyaks say that when it is very wet
the Mias covers himself over with leaves of Pandanus, or large ferns, which
has, perhaps, led to the story of his making a hut in the trees. The Orang
does not leave his bed till the sun has well risen and has dried up the dew
upon the leaves. He feeds all through the middle of the day, but seldom
returns to the same tree two days running. They do not seem much alarmed

at man, as they often stared down upon me for several minutes, and they
only moved away slowly to an adjacent tree. After seeing one, I have often
had to go half a mile or more to fetch my gun, and in nearly every case have
found it on the same tree, or within a hundred yards, when I returned. I
never saw two full-grown animals together, but both males and females are
sometimes accompanied by half-grown young ones, while, at other times,
three or four young ones were seen in company. Their food consists almost
exclusively of fruit, with occasional leaves, buds, and young shoots. They
seem to prefer unripe fruits, some of which were very sour, others intensely
bitter, particularly the large red fleshy arillus, or rind of one, which seemed
an especial favourite. In other cases they eat only the small seed of a large
fruit, and they almost always waste and destroy more than they eat, so that
there is a continual rain of rejected portions below the tree they are feeding
on. The Durion is an especial favourite, and quantities of this delicious fruit
are destroyed wherever it grows surrounded by forest, but they will not
cross clearings to get at them. It seems wonderful how the animal can tear
open this fruit, the outer covering of which is so thick and tough, and
closely covered with strong conical spines. It probably bites off a few of
these first, and then, making a small hole, tears open the fruit with its
powerful fingers. The Mias rarely descends to the ground, except when,
pressed by hunger, it seeks for succulent shoots by the river side; or, in very
dry weather, has to search after water, of which it generally finds sufficient
in the hollows of leaves. Once only I saw two half-grown Orangs on the
ground, in a dry hollow at the foot of the Simunjou Hill. They were playing
together, standing erect, and grasping each other by the arms. It may be
safely stated, however, that the Orang never walks erect, unless when using
its hands to support itself by branches overhead, or when attacked.
Representations of its walking with a stick are entirely imaginary. The
Dyaks all declare that the Mias is never attacked by any animal in the
forest, with two rare exceptions; and the accounts I received of these are so
curious, that I give them nearly in the words of my informants, old Dyak
chiefs, who had lived all their lives in the places where the animal is most
abundant. The first of whom I inquired said:—‘No animal is strong enough
to hurt the Mias, and the only creature he ever fights with is the Crocodile.
When there is no fruit in the jungle, he goes to seek food on the banks of
the river, where there are plenty of young shoots that he likes, and fruits that
grow close to the water. Then the Crocodile sometimes tries to seize him,

but the Mias gets upon him, and beats him with his hands and feet, and tears
him, and kills him.’ He added that he had once seen such a fight, and that he
believes that the Mias is always the victor. My next informant was the
Orang Kaya, or chief of the Balow Dyaks, on the Simunjou River. He said:
‘The Mias has no enemies; no animals dare attack it but the Crocodile and
the Python. He always kills the Crocodile by main strength, standing upon
it, pulling open its jaws, and ripping up its throat. If a Python attacks a
Mias, he seizes it with his hands, and then bites it, and soon kills it. The
Mias is very strong; there is no animal in the jungle so strong as he.’”
It is very remarkable that an animal so large, so peculiar, and of such a
high type of form as the Orang-utan, should be confined to so limited a
district—to two islands, and those almost the last inhabited by the higher
Mammalia; but in the Mid-Tertiary Period, and just before the formation of
the Himalayan Mountains, Orangs lived on the continent of India, and their
remains have been found fossilised. With what interest must every naturalist
look forward to the time when the caves and Tertiary deposits of the tropics
may be thoroughly examined, and the past history and earliest appearance
of the great man-like Apes be at length made known!
The Orang-utans appear, from what has been written by all competent
observers, to be of two kinds, the one larger, and the other smaller in
stature; the first is called Simia satyrus, and the other Simia morio. Simia is
translated in old Latin dictionaries as an Ape, or Jackanapes, and the term
was used to designate the tribe or genus which should include all the
species or kinds of man-shaped Apes. But after a while there was thought to
be sufficient reasons for separating the Troglodytes from the genus Simia,
and therefore this last-named one, instead of comprising the Gorilla, the
Nschiego, the Koolo, the Soko, and the Chimpanzee, has but the Orang-
utan.
Why this separation should have taken place is of course a very natural
question, and the answer is that there are sufficient differences in the
construction of the Orangs and the Chimpanzees and the others to warrant
it. There is a greater structural difference between the Orang and the
Chimpanzee than between this last and any of its congeners, that is to say,
species included in the genus Troglodytes.

Moreover, on examining several skulls and skeletons of all these kinds,
it seems as if, whilst the African Troglodytes may have descended from a
common ancestor, probably a Baboon, the Orang-utan could not have come
from the same stock.
There are some important distinctions in the anatomy of the Orang,
some of which are evidently produced by adaptation to a particular habit or
mode of life, and others in which the results of cause and effect cannot be
traced.
In making its way through the forest, and in climbing so constantly that
any position on the ground is rare, the great length of the fore limbs is of
immense use to them. They nearly touch the ground, so long are they, when
the creature is erect, and this peculiarity separates them from the
Chimpanzees. In climbing, the blade-bone is of great importance; and in the
Orang it is broader, and more like that of man than in the Chimpanzee and
Gorilla, and its spine is inclined upwards; and one of the processes of the
blade-bone which has to do with the muscles which pass from the shoulder
to the arm, and which is called the coracoid, is more inclined downwards
than in the Apes already described. Now, the blade-bone of the Chimpanzee
and its coracoid are admirably adapted for climbing; why are they not,
therefore, exactly like those of the Orang, and vice versâ? This is not a
difference produced by adaptation of means to ends, but one which relates
to the origin of the two animals, and to those which preceded them. The
same is the case in respect of the wrist of the Orang. It has one bone more
than the Chimpanzee, which has the same number as in other Troglodytes,
and in man also. This bone is fixed in between the two rows of the bones of
the wrist, and is called the “intermediate,” and is found in the Monkeys
which are below the Orang in the animal scale. It is an offshoot of the
scaphoid bone.
Oddly enough, although the number of the ribs of the Troglodytes is
thirteen, and probably in one of them there are fourteen, there are only
twelve in the Orang; and the breast-bone, which consists of a large upper
bone and several smaller ones (united above and below to each other, in the
Troglodytes), has these bones separate and halved, as it were, sideways in
the Orang, resembling in it the condition of the bones of the immature man.
In the Troglodytes the round top of the thigh-bone, where it fits into its
socket, the hip, has a kind of rope-like ligament attaching the one bone to

the other, but this does not exist in the Orang. The knee-cap is very small,
and the heel-bone hardly projects backwards in the Orang, and the “toe-
thumb” sticks out at right angles from the foot, being about one-quarter of
its length. The Orang is a great climber, and rarely, if ever, walks on its sole,
which the Chimpanzee can do slightly. The general appearance and the
nature of the movements of the foot of the Orang is that of a thin “club
foot.” All the turning-in of the bones of the foot in the Chimpanzee is
exaggerated in the Orang, whose toe-thumbs are capable of great activity.
Tame Orangs may be noticed to use the foot, which is longer than the lower
leg, in climbing, as perfectly as the hand; and it appears that the frequency
of their movements of grasping, rather than of delicate prehension, tends to
the last joint of the “toe-thumb” becoming small and losing its nail.
A huge air-pouch is packed away in front of the windpipe and amongst
the muscles of the neck, as in the Apes already noticed, and it commences
in the so-called ventricles of the larynx. Its extension amongst the upper
muscles of the chest is most remarkable, for when full of air, these being
relaxed, it must blow out the upper part of the body and neck in a singular
manner.
One of the muscles of the chest, common to man and Apes, the great
pectoral (pectoralis major)—which has already been noticed as springing
from the ribs, the breast and collar-bone, and to be attached in front of the
groove in the upper arm-bone—is not a continuous sheet of muscular fibre
as in man, but is divided into a number of bundles, there being at least three
great ones. Now, it is between these and in their intervals that the vast
laryngeal air-pouch is found on the chest. Great as it is, however, it does not
appear to have anything to do with the voice, except, perhaps, to produce
resonance during distension.
The muscles of the hips, thigh, and leg-bones of the Orang cannot be
distinguished generally from those of the Chimpanzee; but it is evident that
the position of some is such as to make straightening of the knee very
difficult, and on the contrary, they assist jumping and climbing, or any
movement in which it can be kept permanently bent. As it is most
convenient for the foot of the Orang to be well expanded during climbing or
holding on, and not for its bones to be too much forced together sideways,
the animal is deficient in a muscle which exists in man,[15] and which
stretches transversely across, between the ends of the metatarsal bones. In

like manner the inability of the thumb to perform many separate actions is
produced by the absence of the flexor muscle; but there is a slip of a muscle
whose tendon reaches the first joint, and its office is to oppose the thumb,
not to the palm of the hand, but to the first joint of the second finger. This is
a monkeyish peculiarity.
The animal, using as it does its short toe-thumb for grasping forcibly,
requires all the power possible to be exercised between its bones and those
of the ankle. Hence it has a muscle which exists in the hand but not in the
foot of man, and which, from its drawing the bones together, is called the
opponens (of the great toe). This does not appear to exist in the Troglodytes.
The other most important peculiarities of the muscles which relate to the
greater but less independent movement of the toes and fingers, are the
connection of the long flexor of the “toe-thumb” with the lower and outer
part of the thigh-bone, and the possession of a complete set of deep
extensor muscles for the four outer fingers. The extensor of the first, and the
corresponding muscle of the little finger, subdivide to supply the third and
fourth. This is the case in the next group of Apes also, but in the
Troglodytes each of these muscles has but a single tendon.[16]

ORANG AND NEST.

Before considering the anatomy of the brain, skull, and the inside of the
Orang, it is as well to become aware of some of its peculiarities when
young, and in a state of captivity.
Several young Orang-utans have been brought to Europe and exhibited,
to the delight of every one who saw them, but Mr. Wallace was fortunate
enough to obtain one in its native haunts, and to observe it in its own
climate. After shooting a female Mias, he found a little tiny one, lying face

downwards, in the swamp where they
were. “It was only about a foot long,”
writes Mr. Wallace, “and had evidently
been hanging to its mother when she first
fell. Luckily, it did not appear to have been
wounded, and after we had cleaned the
mud out of its mouth it began to cry out,
and seemed quite strong and active. While
carrying it home it got its hands in my
beard, and grasped so tightly, that I had
great difficulty in getting free, for the
fingers are habitually bent inwards at the YOUNG ORANG.
last joint, so as to form complete hooks. At (From Wallace, by permission of the
Publishers.)
this time it had not a single tooth, but a
few days afterwards it cut its two lower
front teeth. Unfortunately, I had no milk to give it, as neither Malays,
Chinese, nor Dyaks ever use the article, and I in vain inquired for any
female animal that could suckle my little infant. I was therefore obliged to
give it rice-water from a bottle, with a quill in the cork, which after a few
trials it learned to suck very well. This was very meagre diet, and the little
creature did not thrive well on it, although I added sugar and cocoa-nut milk
occasionally, to make it more nourishing. When I put my finger in its mouth
it sucked with great vigour, drawing in its cheeks with all its might in the
vain effort to extract some milk, and only after persevering a long time
would it give up in disgust, and set up a scream very like that of a baby in
similar circumstances. When handled or nursed, it was very quiet and
contented, but when laid down by itself would invariably cry; and for the
first few nights was very restless and noisy. I fitted up a little box for a
cradle, with a soft mat for it to lie upon, which was changed and washed
every day; and I soon found it necessary to wash the little Mias as well.
After I had done so a few times, it came to like the operation, and as soon as
it was dirty would begin crying, and not leave off till I took it out and
carried it to the spout, when it immediately became quiet, although it would
wince a little at the first rush of the cold water, and make ridiculously wry
faces while the stream was running over its head. It enjoyed the wiping and
rubbing dry amazingly, and when I brushed its hair seemed to be perfectly
happy, lying quite still, with its arms and legs stretched out, while I

thoroughly brushed the long hair of its back and arms. For the first few days
it clung desperately with all four hands to whatever it could lay hold of, and
I had to be careful to keep my beard out of its way, as its fingers clutched
hold of hair more tenaciously than anything else, and it was impossible to
free myself without assistance. When restless, it would struggle about, with
its hands up in the air, trying to find something to take hold of, and, when it
had got a bit of stick or rag in two or three of its hands, seemed quite happy.
For want of something else, it would often seize its own feet, and after a
time it would constantly cross its arms, and grasp with each hand the long
hair that grew just below the opposite shoulder. The great tenacity of its
grasp soon diminished, and I was obliged to invent some means to give it
exercise and strengthen its limbs. For this purpose I made a short ladder of
three or four rounds, on which I put it to hang for a quarter of an hour at a
time. At first it seemed much pleased, but it could not get all four hands in a
comfortable position, and, after changing about several times, would leave
hold of one hand after the other, and drop on the floor. Sometimes when
hanging only by two hands, it would loose one, and cross it to the opposite
shoulder, grasping its own hair; and, as this seemed much more agreeable
than the stick, it would then loose the other and tumble down, when it
would cross both, and lie on its back quite contentedly, never seeming to be
hurt by its numerous tumbles. Finding it so fond of hair, I endeavoured to
make an artificial mother, by wrapping up a piece of buffalo-skin into a
bundle, and suspending it about a foot from the floor. At first this seemed to
suit it admirably, as it could sprawl its legs about and always find some hair,
which it grasped with the greatest tenacity. I was now in hopes that I had
made the little orphan quite happy; and so it seemed for some time, till it
began to remember its lost parent, and try to suck. It would pull itself up
close to the skin, and try about everywhere for a likely place; but, as it only
succeeded in getting mouthfuls of hair and wool, it would be greatly
disgusted, and scream violently, and after two or three attempts, let go
altogether. One day it got some wool into its throat, and I thought it would
have choked, but after much gasping it recovered, and I was obliged to take
the imitation mother to pieces again, and give up this last attempt to
exercise the little creature. After the first week I found I could feed it better
with a spoon, and give it a little more varied and more solid food. Well-
soaked biscuit, mixed with a little egg and sugar, and sometimes sweet
potatoes, were readily eaten; and it was a never-failing amusement to

observe the curious changes of countenance by which it would express its
approval or dislike of what was given to it. The poor little thing would lick
its lips, draw in its cheeks, and turn up its eyes with an expression of the
most supreme satisfaction when it had a mouthful particularly to its taste.
On the other hand, when its food was not sufficiently sweet or palatable, it
would turn the mouthful about with its tongue for a moment, as if trying to
extract what flavour there was, and then push it all out between its lips. If
the same food was continued, it would set up a scream, and kick about
violently, exactly like a baby in a passion. After I had had the little Mias
about three weeks, I fortunately obtained a young Macaque Monkey
(Macacus cynomolgus), which, though small, was very active, and could
feed itself. I placed it in the same box with the Mias, and they immediately
became excellent friends, neither exhibiting the least fear of the other. The
little Monkey would sit upon the other’s stomach, or even on its face,
without the least regard to its feelings. While I was feeding the Mias, the
Monkey would sit by, picking up all that was spilt, and occasionally putting
out its hands to intercept the spoon, and as soon as I had finished would
pick off what was left sticking to the Mias’ lips, and then pull open its
mouth to see if any still remained inside, afterwards lying down on the poor
creature’s stomach as on a comfortable cushion. The little helpless Mias
would submit to all these insults with the most exemplary patience, only too
glad to have something warm near it which it could clasp affectionately in
its arms. It sometimes, however, had its revenge; for when the Monkey
wanted to go away, the Mias would hold on as long as it could by the loose
skin of its back or head, or by its tail, and it was only after many vigorous
jumps that the Monkey could make its escape. It was curious to observe the
different actions of these two animals, which could not have differed much
in age. The Mias, like a very young baby, lying on its back, quite helpless,
rolling lazily from side to side, stretching out all four hands into the air,
wishing to grasp something, but hardly able to guide its fingers to any
definite object, and when dissatisfied opening wide its almost toothless
mouth, and expressing its wants by a most infantine scream; the little
Monkey, on the other hand, in constant motion, running and jumping about
wherever it pleased, examining everything around it, seizing hold of the
smallest objects with the greatest precision, balancing itself on the edge of
the box, or running up a post, and helping itself to anything eatable that
came in its way. There could hardly be a greater contrast; and the baby Mias

looked more baby-like by the comparison. When I had had it about a
month, it began to exhibit some signs of learning to run alone. When laid
upon the floor it would push itself along by its legs, or roll itself over, and
thus make an unwieldy progression. When lying in the box it would lift
itself up to the edge into almost an erect position, and once or twice
succeeded in tumbling out. When left dirty, or hungry, or otherwise
neglected, it would scream violently till attended to, varied by a kind of
coughing or pumping noise, very similar to that which is made by the adult
animal. If no one was in the house, or its cries were not attended to, it
would be quiet after a little while, but the moment it heard a footstep would
begin again harder than ever. After five weeks it cut its two upper front
teeth, but in all this time it had not grown the least bit, remaining, both in
size and weight, the same as when I first procured it. This was, no doubt,
owing to the want of milk or other equally nourishing food. Rice-water,
rice, and biscuits were but a poor substitute, and the expressed milk of the
cocoa-nut, which I sometimes gave it, did not quite agree with its stomach.
To this I imputed an attack of diarrhœa, from which the poor little creature
suffered greatly, but a small dose of castor-oil operated well, and cured it. A
week or two afterwards it was again taken ill, and this time more seriously.
The symptoms were exactly those of intermittent fever, accompanied by
watery swellings on the feet and head. It lost all appetite for its food, and
after lingering for a week, a most pitiable object, died, after being in my
possession nearly three months. I much regretted the loss of my little pet,
which I had at one time looked forward to bringing up to years of maturity,
and taking home to England. For several months it had afforded me daily
amusement by its curious ways and the inimitably ludicrous expression of
its little countenance. Its weight was three pounds nine ounces, its height
fourteen inches, and the spread of its arms twenty-three inches. I preserved
its skin and skeleton, and in doing so found that, when it fell from the tree,
it must have broken an arm and a leg, which had, however, united so
rapidly, that I only noticed the hard swellings on the limbs where the
irregular junction of the bones had taken place.”
There is evidently much intelligence in the young Orang, when brought
in contact with man, but probably in its native woods it leads a very quiet
and almost mechanical life, there being nothing to develop extra instincts,
thought, or unusual intelligence. Of course, some are more active than
others, and many have to use greater exertion than others to obtain food.

Hence, whilst there is no increased growth of the mental organ after Orang
childhood, there may be great increase of the muscular structures. In the
first instance, the brain case does not enlarge internally, and the old ones
have no more brains than the young; and in the second, the ridges on the
skull, the spines of the neck, and the markings on the bones generally do
grow immensely, so as to give attachment to extra-muscular fibres.

AIR POUCHES OF ORANG. BRAIN OF ORANG.
(After Temminck.) (From Royal College of Surgeons.)

Moreover, besides these causes of growth there are those hidden ones
which refer to sex, the old males acquiring a hideous aspect in our eyes, but
lovely in those of the more comely female Miases, from the growth of long
head ridges and the curious face pads. The bulk of the brain of an Orang is
about one-half of that of a man of ordinary mind; and the brain itself, whilst
it is higher in measurement than that of any of the Apes already mentioned,
is long and flat in comparison with that of man. In front it tapers off
slightly, and is not flat in front and below, for there the eye-cases or orbits,
by projecting upwards, render the brain in their neighbourhood, as it were,
excavated. As in the other Apes, the back of the brain is well developed, and
the several parts distinguishable in man exist. One of the furrows so visible
in the Troglodytes, which marks the side of the brain towards the back (the
occipito-temporal), is scarcely in existence in the Orang.

There is something very human in the appearance of the brain case in
the young of both species of Orang. The back and sides have the peculiar
“bumpy” look of those of the child; there are then no crests, and the brow
ridges, extremely small, merge into a straightish forehead. The face looks
long in front of the eyes, or orbits, and these are elliptical or oval, and
approaching the circular in outline. The cheeks look wide even in the young
ones; and it will be noticed that the bone of the upper jaw (superior
maxillary bone) has a short projection, which joins the molar or cheek-bone
at some distance from the jaw. There is a hole or holes under the orbit in
man and in the Troglodytes which transmits a nerve to the face, and people
who have tic-douloureux know where it is very well; this is close to the
junction of the molar and jaw-bones in the Troglodytes, but in the Orang
this junction is much further off the middle of the face. This causes the
extra width to the cheeks. The bone there forms the surface upon which the
curious pad of fat and skin rests, which gives such an ugly look to the face
in the old ones, when all these parts have grown to excess. The young have
milk teeth, and in the upper jaw the last crushing or molar tooth has large
cusps behind and projecting inwards, and the incisor teeth are equal in size.
In the lower jaw the incisors are grooved in front in a curious manner; and
the great molar teeth with five cusps have a curiously wrinkled-looking
surface. Underneath the skull looks long, and the hole for the spinal cord is
much longer than broad, and the joints or condyles are distant from the
front of it. The palate is broad and the nose cavity also, and there is a bony
styloid process connected with the ear-bone.
In the female of the Simia morio, which is the smallest Orang, all the
structures just mentioned as characterising the young Simia satyrus and the
young male Morio are exaggerated. There are faint frontal ridges also, and
the back ridge or crest is shown, but there is hardly any difference in the
size of the brain case. The front bone of the upper jaw is very distinct; and
the creature whose skull is in the British Museum had its permanent teeth,
the milk ones having fallen. There was the same number of teeth as in the
Troglodytes and in man. But it is in the old males that the juvenile
structures are greatly altered; and it is indeed hard to believe their skulls
ever could have belonged to the same species. In the old males the brain
case has not increased in its capacity, but it is furnished with huge ridges
along the front and crossing behind. The ridges commence on the brow
ridges and the outside of the orbits, which are no longer nearly circular, but

flattened above; they pass on to the
forehead, and curve to join in the middle
line of the skull, forming a crest. This
meets at the back a crest coming from the
tip of each ear-bone. The cheek-bones are
huge and wide apart; the upper canine
teeth are great, and their sockets mark the
face. The palate is huge, wide, and not
arched; and the upper middle incisors
project, and are very large, cutting indeed
upon three of the lower ones.
All the roughnesses for the attachment
WRIST BONES OF ORANG.[17]
of muscles are great, and the lower jaw is
immense, and the tooth next to the lower
canine—the first false molar—is pointed and cutting behind. Finally, the
opening for the spinal cord (the foramen magnum) is round in front, and the
condyle joints are close to its anterior margin. These are changes during the
growth which are worth considering, especially as they cause the animal to
depart from many of its man-like characters, which are so well seen in the
young and in the females.
The Orang has no uvula, and the papillæ of the back of the tongue are in
the shape of the letter V. Its stomach differs somewhat in shape from that of
man and the Troglodytes, but its vegetable diet determines the existence of
a large intestine which has a little ending or appendix (vermiformis) as in
man.

SIAMANG.

CHAPTER IV.
THE MAN-SHAPED APES (concluded)—THE GIBBONS[18]—1. THE
SIAMANGS—2. THE TRUE GIBBONS.

General Characteristics of the Species—THE SIAMANG—Its Habits and Anatomy—
Distinctness from the Orangs and Gibbons—Special Peculiarities—THE WHITE-
HANDED GIBBON—Where Found—Its Cry—Its Habits—Special Anatomical Features
—THE HOOLOOK—Where Found—A Young One in Captivity—Shape of the Skull—
THE WOOYEN APE—Its Appearance and Habits—THE WOW-WOW—Very little known
about it—THE AGILE GIBBON—Reason of the Name—Peculiarities of the Anatomy—
General Comparison of the Different Varieties of the Great Apes

THE Orang-utan is not the only man-shaped Ape of the forests and
jungles of the great Asiatic Islands, for there are several others to be found
there, and which also live on the main land, from Malacca far away to the
north in Assam; southwards, in the peninsula of Hindostan, and in South
China.
They are less human-looking than the red Orangs, and they are smaller
and more slender, but when they walk for a short distance erect, with the
arms above the head balancing the body, their resemblance to a small and
hairy “lord of creation” is considerable. A very slight glance distinguishes
them from the Orangs; they have straight backs, small beads, large eyes,
rather prominent chins, very long fore-arms, and their fingers reach the
ankle in some, and the ground in others. Moreover, the Orangs sit upon a
surface of hair, and these are furnished with a hard pad-like seat which is
bare, and is called a callosity, but they have no tail. They can run.
These long-armed Apes have a number of names, but as a whole they
are called Gibbons; and as their outside and inside differences and
distinctions from the Orangs are considerable and more than those of the
kinds of Orangs between themselves, they are grouped into a separate
genus. The Orangs form, as has been stated before, the genus Simia, and
these Gibbons constitute the genus Hylobates, a term taken from the Greek
ὑλοβάτης, a walker in the woods.
So far as their intelligence, amiability, and teachableness are concerned,
they are equal to the Orangs, and indeed they seem to adapt themselves to
the methods of men more readily. Not only do they become very fond of
their keepers, but they recollect them after the lapse of time; and they are
constantly let loose by those who keep them in India to wander about the
trees in the neighbourhood, and they will return to be cared for, and come,
when called, to be fed.
Interesting to those who study the intelligence of animals, they are
equally so to the common observer, who delights in witnessing their
surpassing agility, wonderful leaps, and graceful swings from bough to
bough. But to the anatomist they present many complicated problems for
although evidently not so high in the animal scale as the Orangs and
Chimpanzees, they have some things about them which cause them to
resemble man more than do these great Apes, and others which cause them

to resemble the large army of Monkeys. They are the last of the man-shaped
in the classification, and the usual plan is to place them after the Orangs.
They are extremely delicate animals, although their fur is thick, and, in
some kinds, long. They require a considerable temperature and very pure
air; hence, although many have been brought to Europe, and exhibited to
the delight of thousands, they do not live long, dying usually from
consumption or from some lung disease. In the British Museum there are
several groups of stuffed specimens of them, and also many skulls and
skeletons, and a cursory examination of the first will prove that it is very
difficult to distinguish one kind from another, for in the same kind, or
species, there is a great variety of colour, and a different individuality in the
two sexes and young. It has happened that the same kind has been called by
several names by different observers, and it is only when the skeleton has
been examined with the stuffed specimen that a satisfactory distinction
between the species or kinds has been made.
Evidently, the whole of these long-armed Apes, with small heads and
callosities on the seat, are separable into two divisions. In one the animals
are larger than the others, and have a very singular adaptation of the foot for
rapid movement amongst the boughs, and they have air-pouches; and in the
second the animals are smaller, and have the toes free, and have no
pouches. So the genus Hylobates is divided into two divisions: 1. The
Siamangs. 2. The True Gibbons.

THE SIAMANG.[19]

Sir Stamford Raffles brought the Siamang prominently before the
scientific world, and noticed the curious manner in which some of the toes
were united, and he considered that this was to enable them to swing
rapidly from branch to branch during their ordinary movements in the
forest, when any stretching out of the fingers might be dangerous and
produce a fall. But in this, as in many others, we owe to Mr. Wallace thanks
for a concise description of the habits of the creature, which, from having
its toes partly joined, has been named, Syndactylus, from the Greek words
σὺν and δάκτυλος, which mean “together” and “finger.”

“A very curious Ape, the Siamang, was rather abundant, but it is much
less bold than the common Monkeys, keeping to the virgin forest, and
avoiding villages. This species is allied to the little long-armed Apes of the
genus Hylobates, but is considerably larger, and differs from them by
having the two first fingers of the feet united together, nearly to the end;
whence its name. It moves much more slowly than the Hylobates, keeping
lower down in the trees, and not indulging in such tremendous leaps; but
still it is very active, and by means of its immense long arms—five feet six
inches across in an adult about three feet high—can swing itself along
among the trees at a great rate. I purchased a small one, which had been
caught by the natives, and tied up so tightly as to hurt it. It was rather
savage at first, and tried to bite, but when we had released it, and given it
two poles under the verandah to hang upon, securing it by a short cord
running along the pole with a ring, so that it could move easily, it became
more contented, and would swing itself about with greater rapidity. It ate
almost any kind of fruit and rice, and I was in hopes to have brought it to
England, but it died just before I started. It took a dislike to me at first,
which I tried to get over by feeding it constantly myself. One day, however,
it bit me so sharply while giving it food that I lost patience, and gave it
rather a severe beating which I regretted afterwards, as from that time it
disliked me more than ever. It would allow my Malay boys to play with it,
and for hours together would swing by its arms from pole to pole, and on to
the rafters of the verandah, with so much ease and rapidity, that it was a
constant source of amusement to us. When I returned to Singapore it
attracted great attention, as no one had seen a Siamang before, although it is
not uncommon in some parts of the Malay peninsula.”
There are some interesting points about the relation of the construction
of this animal and its method of moving. Thus, in grasping a bough with the
arm at full length above the head, so as to leave it with a swing in order to
grasp another rapidly and for a correspondingly short period of time, the
fingers require to be kept together as much as is possible, and to remain
more or less bent on the palm. The long thumb may or may not be used, but
in order to move efficiently it must be free, and also strong. Now in the
Siamang these necessary peculiarities are present, and the common use of
the finger and thumb in taking hold of things in the ordinary manner is
sacrificed to them, and there is little or no delicacy of fingering or of
prehension. Moreover, the fingers and thumbs are extremely thin and

delicate, and in order to render the first finger less movable, it is, to a
certain extent, deficient in its muscles of extension; and the common
bending or flexor muscle of the fingers is very independent of that of the
thumb. In compensation there is a special muscle found in this genus alone,
which pulls the top of the second finger towards the thumb.[20] The skeleton
of the hand shows that the fingers are slightly curved. There is no doubt that
the hand of the Siamang, although it has these peculiar muscles, the curve
of the bones, and also the extra bone noticed in the Orangs, is, as far as its
skeleton is concerned, much more human than that of the other Apes. The
extensor muscles of the fingers resemble those of the Orangs. The hand is
larger than the foot in these animals, and the forearm is much longer than
the upper arm.
A French naturalist states that the animal can leap, or, rather, swing—for
it is done with the fore limbs—with graceful agility at least eighty feet, and
the muscles of the arm, which are connected with the chest, aid in this. The
pull is from the stationary arm to the chest of the movable body by
muscular contraction; and the greater the muscular connection between the
arm and chest, the greater will be the movement. In order to provide for
this, the great muscle of the front of the upper arm, the biceps (see page 26),
is not only attached, as in the other Apes and in man, to the blade-bone just
above the arm-joint, but also to the chest in front, for it is united there with
the great muscle which springs from the ribs and breast-bone, and is
attached high up to the arm (pectoralis major). In some of the other Apes
this second part of the biceps is attached to a bent projection (coracoid) of
the blade-bone, so that it has no direct attachment with the chest itself.
The Siamang can walk fairly in the erect posture by balancing with the
arms, or by placing them over the head, and it has a great power of grasp
with its toe-thumb. The shape of the foot resembles that of man more than
that of the Troglodytes and Orangs, and the heel-bone is strong, and
projects but slightly, and the toe-thumb is stout and long. The muscles of
the foot are, as it were, more separate than in man, especially the flexors:
and there is an extra muscle, an abductor of the third joint of the second toe.
The ability to walk well was proved when a tame Siamang used to walk
along a cabin table at sea, without disturbing the crockery; and curiously
enough this was better done than were some of the ordinary movements of

the hand, for drinking out of the palm was a most ineffective and clumsy
effort.
The bones of the foot resemble those of man more than do those of the
Apes already noticed; but the first and second fingers are united by a fold of
skin.
Under the jaw and along the throat of a
tame Siamang, a large swelling, not very well
covered with hair, was visible enough. This
was a vast air or laryngeal pouch, and pressure
emptied it into the throat. Hence the creature
in this point resembles the Oranges and the
Troglodytes, but the use of the sac could not
be satisfactorily decided. The sac opens into
the windpipe by two apertures, which are in a
membrane that unites the base of the tongue
and the organ of voice together. It has an
uvula.
They are quiet, inoffensive animals, full of
affection for man, and having good memories.
Their temper is short enough sometimes,
especially if there is any disappointment, but
they have none of the mischievous tricks or
malice of the Monkeys. Liking milk
occasionally, they still mainly feed on fruit
and leaves, and hence the nature of their teeth,
the size of their jaws, and the capacity of their
brain case may be fairly anticipated.
SKELETON OF THE SIAMANG.
The bulk of the brain is less in comparison (From the “Cyclopædia of Anatomy
with that of the Orang, and the hind part does and Physiology.”)
not quite cover or overlap the cerebellum, and
the whole skull is long and low, and slightly broad behind. The most
striking parts about it are the cavities for the eyes (the orbits), which are
nearly circular in outline, deep, open, and swollen behind; moreover, they
are wide apart, and there is no brow ridge connecting them. They, the face
and the lower jaw, occupy only one-half of the skull, and the brain case is

composed of the usual bones, which are extremely faintly ridged, the ridges
extending on either side from the outer part of the orbit on to the frontal and
parietal (or side) head bones. The back of the skull is rough, for the
attachment of muscles, and the opening for the spinal cord and the joints for
the top of the neck are far back, so that the head is set, as it were, forward in
respect of the spine. There is a long and narrow roof to the mouth, and the
diastema, or space in the line of the teeth, in front of the upper eye or canine
teeth, is very distinct. These teeth are long, thin, and grooved, and project
rather outwards as well as far below the other upper teeth. Yet, in all
probability, this is not a bloodthirsty sign, but one which may have to do
with sex, the males of many of the Monkeys possessing these great teeth
only, or having them larger than the females. The first, or incisor teeth,
occupy a very small space, and they and the two front molars are like those
of man. An examination of the three true crushing molars shows the last, or
that nearest the back of the jaw, to be the largest. They have four cusps or
projections, which are small but decided, and somewhat resemble those of
insect-eating animals.
The lower jaw is very remarkable, for it has a good straight chin; and
the joint and the part which passes from it to the body of the jaw, or the
“angle,” resembles that of man more than that of the rest of the Apes.
The lower teeth are very unlike the upper, and the canines are smaller;
the first false molar is pyramidal, and has a cutting surface in front and
behind. The true molars have at least five cusps or projections, and are
admirably suited for the creature’s diet.
One of the most curious points about the Siamang is that the broad
breast-bone, the blade-bone, and large chest, and the ribs present human
resemblances, but there are fourteen pairs of these last. The hip-bones are
long and do not curve far in front, but the joint of the thigh is situated more
after the manner of that of man than is the case in the other great Apes.
Everything in this creature’s anatomy, and, amongst other things, its
delicate, long bones, great grasp, supple back, small head, long neck, and
long hair, assist in its peculiar life, which is evidently one of much
climbing, swaying, swinging, and passing from tree to tree with the hands
rather than with the feet. It lives in Sumatra and in the Malay peninsula.

THE TRUE GIBBONS.

The other kinds of Hylobates are called the True Gibbons, and although
in their habits they greatly resemble the Siamang, they are smaller in size,
and have some very remarkable structural differences. They inhabit the
mainland of India and the great islands of Borneo and Sumatra, or, rather,
all the great islands of the Indo-Malayan sub-region, except the Philippines.
They are found in Sylhet, and Assam, and Camboja, in South China, to the
west of Canton, and in the island of Hainan.

THE WHITE-HANDED OR LAR GIBBON.[21]

GROUP OF SIAMANGS AND GIBBONS.
❏
LARGER IMAGE

A well-known kind of Gibbon, which is found in Tenasserim, is called
the White-handed Gibbon, or Hylobates lar. The old Latin dictionaries
translated “lar” as a god who preserved both house and land, and presided
over cities and houses, or the chimney or fireside; but this evidently does

not apply to the Gibbon. But the Lar, or Lares, were demons, genii, or
sprites, and probably the sprite-like activity of the Gibbons in their own
woods suggested the name.

WHITE-HANDED GIBBON. (From a stuffed specimen.)

The Hylobates Lar is found in great abundance in all the forests skirting
the hills, which run from north to south in the country of Tenasserim, south-
west of Burmah. They ascend the hills up to an elevation of from 3,000 to
3,500 feet, but not higher, and are met with in parties of from eight to
twenty in number, composed of individuals of all ages. It is rare to see a
solitary one; occasionally, however, an old male will stray apart from the
flock, and perch on the summit of some vast tree, whence his howls are
heard for miles around. The forests which these animals inhabit resound
with their cries from sunrise to about nine in the morning, and their usual
call may be thus rendered:—

The sounds vary from the deep notes of the old ones to the sharp treble
of the young, in horrible unison. During these vocal efforts they appear to
resort to the tops of the loftiest trees, and to call each other from different
parts of the jungle. After nine or ten o’clock they begin to think of eating,
and are soon engaged in feeding on fruit, young leaves, buds, shoots, and
insects, for which they occasionally come to the ground. When approached,
if alone, they will sit so close, doubled up in a thick tuft of foliage, or
behind the fork of a tree, and so screened as to be safe from the shot of the
sportsman. With a companion this manœuvre is of course useless. But even
when the creature is forced from its hiding-place it is not easily shot, for it
swings from branch to branch with its long arms, shaking the boughs all
round, and flinging itself from prodigious heights into the dense under-
scrub, and is quickly concealed from view. This long-armed Ape does not
walk readily on its hind-legs, and has to stop frequently and prop or urge
itself on, having the knuckles on the ground. In sitting it often rests on its
elbows, and it likes to lie on its back. They make great use of their hind
limbs, and of the hand-foot especially, for they will cling on and swing with
their fore-hands, and steal and carry anything which pleases them with their
hinder ones. In captivity it is generally a gentle, peaceable animal, very
timid; but when captured after its young days have passed, it becomes very
wild. The adults soon die, and even the young seldom reach maturity when
deprived of liberty. They are born generally in the early part of the cold
weather, a single one at a time, two being as rare as human twins. The
young one clings safely to the mother for about seven months, although she
swings and climbs to perfection, and then it shifts for itself. They may be
made cross, like most creatures, by being teased, and anger is then shown
by a steady look, with the mouth held open, and the lips occasionally drawn
back to show the eye teeth, with which they bite severely. But usually it
attacks with its long hands, which are at such times held dangling and
shaken in a ridiculous manner, like a person who has suddenly burnt his
fingers. It drinks in a curious and difficult manner, by scooping the water in

its long narrow hand, and thus conveying a very little drop at a time to its
mouth.
Usually the young are feeble, dull, and querulous in captivity, and sit
huddled up together on the ground, seldom or never climbing trees. On the
smooth surface of a matted floor they will run along on their feet and slide
on their hands at the same time. By being fed solely on plantains, or on milk
and rice, they are apt to lose all their fur, presenting in their nude state a
most ridiculous appearance. Few recover; but by change of diet, and
especially by allowing them to help themselves to insects, some of them
come round, and resume their natural covering. For the most part they are
devoid of those pranks and tricks which are exhibited by the smaller
Monkeys. The length of a full-grown male was two feet six inches; the fore-
limb measured two feet one inch, and the hind limb one foot seven and a
half inches. The Lar or White-handed Gibbon has a black skin and hair, and
there is a white band round the entire face, across the forehead.
The Lar is common in its native haunts, and is subject to great variation
in its colour. Some are dark brown or black, with white hands and feet, and
they have the circle of white hairs around the face, the band across the
forehead coming down in a peak above the nose. Others are ochre-brown,
and have a lighter-coloured hand, foot, and anklet; whilst many are a dirty
white. They take odd fancies, and likes and dislikes. Some which are
allowed in India to roam about the grounds of the Zoological Gardens there
will come in to sleep, and are exceedingly gentle to men, but extremely
savage to women; others do not do this.
In looking at the collection in the British Museum, every one must be
struck with the long necks of these creatures, which do not allow the little
muzzle and snub-like nose to come down on a level with the breast-bone (as
in the Chimpanzee, for instance), and also with the extremely narrow and
long hands and feet, with their thin fingers. It will be also noticed that the
nails of their thumbs and toe-thumbs are flat, whilst all the rest are claws.
Their chin is less prominent than that of the Siamang, and this is shown in
the skull. In the lower jaw there are some interesting differences between
the Lar and the Siamang which cannot readily be accounted for; firstly, the
crushing teeth wear in pits in the middle, whilst a ridge is formed in the
Siamang; and in the Lar the angle of the jaw is decidedly turned in or

inflected, as the term is, a condition which will be noticed in the other
Hylobates.
No air or laryngeal sac is found in the Lar or in any Gibbon, and its
noise has therefore nothing to do with such an organ.
Their swinging from branch to branch is assisted by the same
arrangement of the muscle of the arm as in the Siamang; and they have the
transversus pedis, which was stated to be wanting in the Orang, and it is
united with the adductor of the thumb.

THE HOOLOOK.[22]

Naturalists have ransacked nearly every part of the globe for interesting
animals, and have procured them from very out-of-the-way places. One of
these localities was particularly difficult to get at years ago, for it is in the
hills, far away to the north-east of Calcutta the other side of the great river
Brahmapootra, in Assam. Amongst the Garrow and Cossyah hills, where
there are wild gorges, and uplands crowded with vast forests, overlooking
the wide plains of the river-valley, there were many wonderfully active
Gibbons. About two feet in length, they were capable of swinging with
unerring certainty from branch to branch, many feet apart; and even the
females performed these constant and natural movements while their young
were hanging to them. They were black in colour, with white eyebrows, or,
rather, a white band across the forehead. When caught, they soon became
tamed, especially when young, and were docile and affectionate. One which
was kept by Dr. Burrough was two feet six inches in length, yet the fore-
limb was only five inches shorter than this, the length of the hand itself
being six inches.
So great was the disproportion of the legs and arms, that the first were,
including the feet, only nineteen inches long, and the fingers touched the
ground readily when he was standing erect. This Hoolook was of a deep
black colour, and he had the usual simple band of white across the forehead,
and black hands and feet. He was caught in the usual haunt of this species,
not on the upper, but on the lower hills, which do not reach a greater
altitude than 500 feet, and being well treated, he was easily tamed, and his
habits were capable of being well watched. He liked the fruit of the peepul-

tree better than anything, and bananas; but
he took to rice and milk, and enjoyed
snapping up a sweet or two, and especially
delighted in Spiders. Meat he cared little
about, and pork and beef he detested, but
he liked fish occasionally. After about a
month’s captivity he took a great fancy to
his master, and would come to his call, and
sit up to breakfast. He liked to help himself
to chicken and egg, and at first was very
bad in his manners, dipping his fingers
into the coffee and milk, and then sucking
them. Afterwards he was taught to hold a
cup and to drink from it. SKULL OF HOOLOOK.
He would walk erect slowly, first on
one foot and then on the other, and would put his long arms over his head to
balance his body, as it swayed first on one side and then on the other as his
pace increased; then he began to run, and at last, grasping a bough, would
swing himself forwards first with one hand and then with the other, getting
over twenty to thirty paces with the greatest ease and regularity. He was
timid, very reluctant to oppose those who teased him, and usually retreated
at once. His master used to brush his skin for him when he was out of sorts,
and the sensation appears to have been most pleasurable, and he evidently
enjoyed the gentle friction very much. Falling ill he had a dose of calomel
and a warm bath, the latter remedy being much more to his taste than the
other.
The skull in the Hoolook has less breadth across the orbits than in the
Lar; and in that of a young one the sutures or joinings of the skull-bones are
distinct, showing that the side-bones (parietal) of the head unite with the
front (frontals), the temporal or ear-bones, and with a part of a wing-shaped
bone which forms part of the base of the skull (sphenoid bone). The angle
of the jaw projects backwards, and it is slightly turned in; moreover, the
projections or cusps of the lower back teeth are five in number, and are
prominent-looking and very sharp, as if they could crush a beetle as well as
crack a nut.

HOOLOOK. (From a stuffed specimen in the British Museum.)

THE WOOYEN APE, OR YUEN.[23]

A number of Apes were found in company on a small island near
Camboja, and at first sight they appeared to be of different kinds, although
they all had the long arms and the general appearance of the “Long-armed
Apes” (Hylobates). But a careful examination proved that they belonged to
one particular species, the individuals of which differ greatly in their colour
during different parts of their lives. The young were uniformly dirty white
in colour, and had no black spots on their chests or heads. The females were
white, with the fur of the back brownish-white, slightly waved, and there
was a large black spot on the crown and one on the chest. On the other hand
the male was black, and the back of the head, body, and legs greyish. The
hands were white. This variation in colour at different ages and in different
sexes in one kind should teach us that something more than mere outside
distinctions is requisite for deciding the value of what are called species.

The dark cap-like mass of hair on the head gives the name to this Ape.
Evidently the animal is a puzzle and a source of the marvellous to the
Chinese, for one of their gazetteers gives a mixture of correct information
regarding its natural history, and of what has been drawn from a very
vigorous imagination.
It is described in the following manner, as coming from the district of
Hainan:—“Yuen—male black, female white, like a Macaque, but larger,
with the two fore-arms exceedingly long. Climbs to tree-tops, and runs
among them backwards and forwards with great agility. If it falls to the
ground it remains there like a log! Its delight is in scaling trees, as it cannot
walk on the ground. Those desiring to rear it in confinement should keep it
amongst trees, for the exhalations of the earth affect it with diarrhœa,
causing death; a sure remedy for this, however, may be found in a draught
made of the syrup of the fried foo-tse” (seeds of Abrus precatorius, the
Indian liquorice).
In a work called Pun Yu liang che, the various kinds of Yuens are
mentioned which are known to the author. “There are three kinds of Yuens
—the Golden-silk Yuen, which is yellow; the Jade-faced Yuen, which is
black; and the Jet-black Yuen, which has the face also black. The Golden-
silk and the Jade-face are both difficult to procure.” “Hainan has also the
Rock Yuen; it is small, about the size of one’s fist. If allowed to drink water
it grows in size. This is also called the Black Yuen, and is difficult to
obtain.” “The word Yuen is given to them from their love of climbing and
their wild disposition.”
In Central Hainan the magistrate of the district was of opinion that the
Yuen had the power of drawing its long arm-bones into its body, and that
when it drew in one it pushed out the other to such an extraordinary length
that he believed the two bones united in the body. He used the front bones
of the arms for chopsticks.

WOOYEN APE. (From a stuffed specimen in the British Museum.)

THE WOW-WOW.

A species which is called the Wow-wow, or Silvery Gibbon (Hylobates
leuciscus), is perhaps more interesting to the anatomist than to the observer
of the habits of animals; for nothing is known about their method of living.
Their skull shows a decided ridge or crest along the top, which branches
well in front into two ridges going to the front over the orbit. Moreover, the
chin of the lower jaw is very deep, the angles slightly turned in, and the eye
teeth are thin and sharp.

THE AGILE GIBBON.[24]

This animal is also interesting, from having a great twist inwards of the
jaw behind, and two curious ridge-like crests on the head. Its name conveys

the extreme agility of the animal, as observed in confinement.
These Gibbons have many interesting points about them, and one of the
most curious is that they have no air or laryngeal pouches, and yet their
general anatomy, especially of the muscles of the throat, neck, and body, is
the same as that of the Siamang, which has been noticed above to have a
vast pouch. The brain is small, especially behind, but why it is difficult to
imagine, for the Spider Monkey, which lives in the New World, and whose
feats of agility resemble those of the Gibbons, has a very large back portion
of the brain, large even in proportion to that of man; and the importance of
this difference is all the greater when it is remembered that all the last
investigations into the actions of the nerves arising from the sides of the
brain towards the back connect them with motions of the hands and fore-
limbs especially. But it is possible that the back of the brain in the Siamang
appears to be smaller than it really is, because of the large size of the
cerebellum. The skulls of the Gibbons are very man-like, and more so than
those of the other Apes, and this is because of their faces and jaws being
smaller in comparison with the brain case. If the young of all the great Apes
be examined, their skulls will appear much more human than those of the
adults, because the brain and face grow up to a certain point together and
equally; but with age the brain does not increase in size proportionally with
the face, which grows on, and finally preponderates in size. But if the skulls
of the young Apes be compared one with the other, that of the Siamang will
really not look as human as that of the Gorilla or Chimpanzee.

AGILE GIBBON.

The Gibbons have a very small appendage to the blindgut, and they
have hard bare pads or callosities on the seat, and these structures connect
them with the next group of Monkeys, which cease to be man-shaped; and
indeed the Gibbons and Siamangs, although man-shaped
(Anthropomorpha), occupy neutral ground between the Orangs and the
Cynomorpha.
Formerly, in those ages when the Orang lived on the continent of India,
the Gibbons roamed far over the vast land surfaces of the period, and lived
in Southern France. Portions of the skeleton of an Ape as large as a man,
but which resembled the Hylobates, were found there, and named
Dryopithecus, in strata of Mid-Tertiary age.

In concluding this part of the subject,
which relates especially to the man-shaped
Apes, some very obvious reflections occur.
There is something very interesting as well
as instructive and suggestive in the study
of the proportions of the limbs to each
other and to the body in the larger Apes, of
which the Gorilla is the highest in the JAW OF THE GIBBON.
scale, and in man. The fingers in man hang
down to below the middle of the thigh; in
the Gorilla they attain the knee; in the Chimpanzee they reach below the
knee; in the Orang they touch the ankle; in the Siamang they reach the sole;
and in some Gibbons the whole palm may be applied to the ground without
the trunk being bent forward beyond its natural position on the legs. It is
also found that in man the arm-bone exceeds in length each of the bones of
the fore-arm in a marked manner, and in the Gorilla and Chimpanzee it does
so but slightly; the bones are equal in the Orangs, and very unequal in the
Gibbons, those of the fore-arm being the longest. When the length of the
arms down to the wrist is compared with that of the body, omitting the legs,
there is not much difference between man and the Gorilla, but it increases in
the Chimpanzee, Orang, and in the Siamang. The lower limbs are short in
the Gorilla, and this is characteristic—they offer but a poor support to the
huge body—and the resemblance to the symmetrical proportion of the legs
to the body in man is scanty indeed. This disproportion is greater in the
Chimpanzee and Orangs, in which the lower limbs are pigmies.
Consider the hand in the same manner. Man’s perfect hand, writes
Owen, is one of his peculiar physical characters, and that perfection is
mainly due to the differences of the first and the other four fingers, and the
ability of this first to be opposed to them, as a perfect thumb. A partially
opposable thumb, that is to say, one which can be brought over the palm,
more or less, is present in the hand of the great Apes. It is large in the
Gorilla, so far as Apes are concerned, and it reaches, when it and the fingers
are stretched out, to just a little beyond the first joint of the first finger, or
rather of its first movable part. But in the Chimpanzee and Orang it does not
reach to the joint, and it is longest and strongest in proportion in the
Gibbons (Hylobates). In the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee, the wrist-bones
are eight in number, but there are nine in the Orangs and Gibbons.

The toe-thumb is about five-twelfths of
the length of the whole foot in the Gorilla,
and it is slightly longer in the Chimpanzee
and Hylobates, but it is not more than a
fourth of the length of the foot in Orangs.
BACK OF JAW OF THE AGILE The nails of all the fingers and toes of
GIBBON. the great Apes are flattened, except in the
Hylobates, whose thumb and toe-thumb
nails only are so; the rest are more claw-like.
Finally, as regards the brain and nervous system. In the man-shaped
Apes the brain is smaller as compared with the nerves which proceed from
it than in man; and the brain proper is smaller relatively to the cerebellum
than in man. The convolutions, the fissures, and eminences of the brain are
generally less complex, and those of the two sides or hemispheres of the
brain are more symmetrical than in man. The sides of the brain or the
hemispheres are rounder and deeper in man, and the proportions of their
lobes to one another are different. Some convolutions and fissures present
in man are less perfectly formed, but still exist in the Apes, and the
cerebellum is not covered entirely in the Hylobates, but it is in the other
Anthropomorpha.

CHAPTER V.
THE DOG-SHAPED MONKEYS[25]—1. SEMNOPITHECUS—2. COLOBUS.

General Characteristics of the Monkeys of the Old World—Distinguished from the Apes by
Length of the Hinder Limbs and presence of Tails—Divided into those with and those
without Cheek-pouches—Use of the Cheek-pouches—The two Genera of Pouchless
Monkeys—THE SACRED MONKEYS, or Semnopitheci—Derivation of the Name—First
Discovery—Ape Worship in India—General Description—Limited to Asia—THE
SIMPAI—Its Locality and Appearance—THE BUDENG—Hunted for their Fur—Its
Colour and Appearance—THE LONG-NOSED MONKEY—Reason of the Name—Quaint
Appearance of the Young—Anatomical Peculiarities—Their First Appearance in
Europe—Description of the Nose—Peculiar Formation of the Stomach—Bezoars—
THE HOONUMAN MONKEY—The Sacred Monkey of the Hindoos—Legends about it—
THE DOUC MONKEY—Its Appearance and Habitat—THE BLACK-LEGGED DOUC—
Anatomical Peculiarities—THE CROWNED MONKEY—THE RED MONKEY—THE
SUMATRA MONKEY—THE WHITE-BEARDED MONKEY—Found in Ceylon—Its
Intelligence—THE GREAT WANDEROO—Other Ceylonese Monkeys—THE GENUS
COLOBUS, or Thumbless Monkeys—Description of the Hand and Wrist—Different
Varieties—COLOBUS VERUS—COLOBUS GUEREZA—Their Habitat and Peculiarities—
Fossil Semnopitheci

THE Apes which have formed the subject of the previous chapters, and
which, from their greater or less resemblance to man, have been called the
Anthropomorpha, have long arms, short legs, and no tails. The great length
of the fore limb distinguishes them not only from man, but also from all the
other Quadrumana, and so does the relative shortness of the hinder limbs.
The length of limb is thus sufficient to afford data for classifying the
Quadrumana of the Old World in two great groups, of which the
Anthropomorpha form the first, and the rest of the Monkeys the second. In
these the fore limb is invariably the shortest, and the hinder one the longest;
so that there is exactly the reverse condition of that observed in the great
Apes. With regard to the tail question, it may be stated that, whilst many
species have very long tails, others have them of moderate length, and a few
have none.
The Monkeys of this second group, or the Cynomorpha, all of which
live in the Old World, have a thin division (septum) between the nostrils,
whose openings look downwards, or downwards and outwards. They are
Catarhine Quadrumana (see page 3), and many have cheek-pouches, but not

all, whilst all have the peculiar pads, more or less brightly coloured, which
are placed where the animal sits, or on the swelling of the haunch-bone. All
these Old World Monkeys have the same number of teeth as the Apes
already described, and arranged in the same manner, and most have a
laryngeal or air pouch; but there is great diversity in their size, shape, and in
the method of progression of the body and shape of the head, and also in the
construction of the brain and internal organs. Moreover, the arrangement of
the muscles and of the back-bone differs.
The presence or absence of the cheek-pouches, the peculiarity in the
shape of the teeth, the shape of the body and limbs, and the method of
moving along, are all matters of importance to the zoologist, for by them he
is enabled to arrange these Monkeys in genera and species, so as to give the
naturalist the proper name of the kind whose habits he may be studying.
Moreover, the comparative anatomist, in examining the insides of these
creatures, and explaining their peculiarities of internal construction, is able
to account for many habits and the presence of many structures, as well as
to assist the zoologist. For, a classification, to be good for anything, must be
more than skin deep, and must depend upon the differences in those parts
which are not readily changed by habits or peculiar methods of life.
The Monkeys of the Old World, excluding the great Apes already
described, and including alone those with long hind limbs, may be divided
into those without cheek-pouches and those which have them; and those in
the first division form the subject of this chapter. Cheek-pouches may be
seen crammed with nuts in most of the Monkeys at the Zoological Gardens,
and the appearance given to the face is as if the skin on each side of the
lower part of it were distended. When there are no nuts thus stowed away,
the cheeks do not present a swollen or unusual appearance. The Monkey
does not force nuts outside its jaws and between them and the cheeks so as
to simply distend them, but it presses its food into what look like some folds
in the cheek. These unfold, and form a bag or pouch on each side of the
face, and the animal can eat, scream, and scold with the pouches full, and
without their contents coming by chance into the mouth. The gift of a
cheek-pouch is of great importance to a Monkey; it is a stowaway for his
food, which may have to be carried some distance before it can be eaten.
And it must be remembered, that not only have the Monkeys very indefinite
notions of meum et tuum, but that they are surrounded by dangers from

many other animals; they are communists, and their motto is la propriété
c’est le vol; and, on the other hand, the great beasts of the earth, whose
stealing is less thought of, because it is done with great violence, openly,
and on a large scale, put down the Monkeys whenever they have the
chance. But Nature, ever a considerate mother, whilst she is exceedingly
economical, and does not allow any structures to be unused or wasted
without gradually abolishing them, often gives animals which are defective
in some things very important compensation.

FACE OF THE BLACK-CRESTED MONKEY.

The pouchless Monkeys are evidently at a disadvantage; but by this
system of compensation they have very peculiar stomachs, in which they
can stow away quite as much food before more is absolutely wanted as their
pouched friends can. The nature of this stomach will be noticed further on;
and it is only necessary to observe that it is not in existence in the cheek-
pouched division at all. The cheeks of the Monkeys with the peculiar
stomach, on the other hand, are not pouched, but there is just the vestige of
a fold or two, which, although of no use, still remains as an evidence of
their ancestry—for, doubtless, these are descended from those with
pouches. The great Anthropomorphous Apes have no cheek-pouches,
neither have the American Monkeys; and, for reasons which will be noticed
in treating of these last, they have not the complicated stomach of the Old
World pouchless group.
The pouchless division of Monkeys with complicated stomachs, and
which, of course, have long hind limbs, comprehends two genera—the
genus Semnopithecus, and the genus Colobus.

THE SACRED MONKEYS.

The Semnopitheci, or the Sacred Apes—from σεμνός (sacred), and
πίθηκος (an Ape)—were probably known to the Greeks who invaded India
under Alexander the Great; and Ctesias, a Greek writer, who was taken
prisoner by Artaxerxes of Persia, at the battle of Cunaxa, some 400 years
B.C., studied them. He was kept for seventeen years at the court of that
monarch, and made notes on most subjects, and also on the natural history
of Persia and India. On his return to Athens he gave the world the results of
his observation in a book, and in it he treats of two Apes, one of which was
smaller than the other, and had a very long tail. This was a Semnopithecus,
for the genus is especially Asiatic; but the ancients did not discriminate
between the long-tailed Apes of Africa and those of Asia, but called both
Cercopithecus—from κέρκος (a tail), and πίθηκος (Ape). At the present
time the word Cercopithecus is restricted to the kinds which live in Africa.
These differ in their internal construction from the Asiatic varieties.
During the rise of the religion of Brahma, the contemplation of the
Creator became singularly mixed up with the worship of the created, and
many animals became sacred. Hence, when one of those wandering restless

spirits, Gasparo Balbi by name, started in 1570 from the town of Venice,
where he was a jeweller, to reach the Indies, and came to the end of his
journey, he saw many a long-tailed Ape worshipped and petted by his
customers. He wandered amidst many a danger—but the people were
honest then—and reached Aleppo. Then he went by caravan to Bagdad, and
got to Old Babylon—by the way, “a place perilous for robbers and lions.”
Reaching Bagdad, he embarked for Balsora, and reached that place after
escaping whirlpools and hot and deadly winds. Thence he went to the cities
of St. Thomas, by the Seven Pagodas, in Southern India. Leaving there, and
much troubled by tigers, he crossed the Ganges and got into Pegu on the
Irawady. He admired the Pagodas, or as they are there called, “the Varelles
of the gods,” and says that about them are found “tyed many Apes of that
kind which resemble Mountain Cats, which were called Monkeys; they
keep them very carefully, holding them to be creatures beloved of God,
because they have their hands and feet like human creatures, and therefore
the woods are full of them, for they never take any except for their Varelles
and statues.” This regard for the Long-tailed Monkey has lasted, and
probably is only now diminishing under the influence of the rationalistic
philosophy of the wicked Europeans, who will not see anything holy in an
Ape. Certain it is that the follies of Ape-worship were carried on to a
wonderful extent, and that these creatures have been preserved to the
serious detriment of crops, comfort, and temper.
The regard of the natives for them was, and probably is still, sincere,
and their boldness—the result of immunity from persecution—was
discovered very early in the English occupation of India; for Tavernier tells
a story of an English “President,” who asked him to shoot some Monkeys,
which were amusingly audacious by the river side. He complied, and a
female fell dead with her young clinging to her. This so enraged the
Monkeys that sixty of them descended at once, and had it not been for the
serving-men, and the carriage being shut up, they would have strangled the
“President.” They followed the carriage for many miles. Then we are told
about Indian princes spending fortunes on the marriage-feasts of Apes; and
of cultivators of the soil being scared away and subjected to all sorts of
rapine by these holy creatures. All this goes to prove that generations of
Hindoos have believed in the sacred character of the Monkey, and have
placed him in their mythology.

So Fred. Cuvier, when he wanted a name, termed them Sacred Apes, or
Semnoptheci. They have been called Slow Apes, but this is quite a
misnomer, for when awake, and not tired, they are as full of fun, activity,
and play, but not as full of malice, as the others.
Wallace, in his charming book of travels in the great Islands of Sumatra
and Borneo, thus noticed how full of life they are:—“In Sumatra, Monkeys
are very abundant, and at Lubo Raman they used to frequent the trees which
overhang the guard-house, and gave me a fine opportunity of observing
their gambols. Two species of Semnopithecus were most plentiful—
Monkeys of a slender form, with very long tails. Not being much shot at,
they are rather bold, and remain quite unconcerned when natives alone are
present; but when I came out to look at them, they would stare for a minute
or two, and then make off. They take tremendous leaps from the branches
of one tree to those of another a little lower. It is very amusing when one
strong leader takes a bold jump, to see the others following with more or
less trepidation; and it often happens that one or two of the last seem quite
unable to make up their minds to leap till the rest are disappearing, when, as
if in desperation at being left behind, they would leap as far as they could,
and often come crashing down into the underwood.”
The Semnopitheci may be described as Monkeys with hind limbs long,
and larger than the fore limbs, with slender bodies, usually highest at the
tail, and round heads, and with not very prominent faces, and very long
tails. They have callous pads on the haunch-bones, and in some there are
slight folds inside the cheeks, but no pouches. The hands have thumbs, and
the last tooth of the lower jaw (the third molar) has a prominent heel to it, or
cusp, besides four others. They are of all sizes, and the largest are bigger
than a Pointer Dog; but they are all slightly made, and their long bodies,
thin as a rule, are larger in the stomach than in the chest. Their tails, which
hang down and are not curled up, distinguish them pretty readily.
The Monkey which shows the peculiarities of the genus Semnopithecus
more than others is, perhaps,

THE BLACK-CRESTED MONKEY, OR THE SIMPAI.[26]

It was noticed and described by Sir Stamford Raffles as a native of
Sumatra, where it is frequently seen in the neighbourhood of Bencoolen. It
has a long and slender body, very long hind-legs, and the tail end is higher
than the shoulders in walking. The fore-legs are short, and the tail is very
long, and exceeds thirty inches in length, and the head is small and
wonderfully straight in the forehead and face.
The colours of this Simpai are very different to those of the great Apes
already mentioned. Here variety of colour replaces the sameness of the tints
of the large Anthropomorpha. First, there is a long crest of black hair on the
top of the head, which passes slightly round the face close. On the cheeks
there is a tuft of fawn-coloured hairs, which graduate into white. The
forehead is of a light fawn-colour, and the face is naked, slightly wrinkled,
and of a blue tint. The under parts of the body are very white, and on the
back and neck the colour is bright yellow and red. The palms and soles are
black, the thumbs are small, and the callosities are large.

THE NEGRO MONKEY.[27]

This is, as the name implies, a black Monkey. It is intensely black,
except underneath, and at the root of the tail, where there is a grey tint. The
paws are long, delicate, and silky, and become slightly grey on the head and
back with old age. Like most black things, it leads a troubled life, being
chased and hunted, not, however, in this instance so much for amusement as
for the pretty black fur. They live in great troops, in the Javanese forests,
and sometimes fifty or more individuals associate together. They make rude
nests in trees, and are extremely timid, making off with great haste if they
are disturbed. A long series of generations has been chased and killed by the
natives of Java, and therefore the present Negro Monkeys are exceedingly
shy, and bolt from the face of man at once. And yet, although thus timid and
anxious to get out of the way, they have the reputation of being dangerous,
and really unwittingly they may be so. On the approach of men they utter
loud screams, and scamper off amongst the trees, helter-skelter. Now in
doing this, they break dead branches off, and sometimes a large fruit or nut
comes tumbling down some score or two of feet. These are supposed to be
thrown by the Monkeys, but such is not the case. Having this bad character,
the “Negroes” are cudgelled with sticks, and killed in numbers very cruelly.

Their pretty fur is much prized, and the chiefs of the country arrange the
hunting parties, treating the Monkeys really as beasts of the field. The skins
are prepared by a simple process which the natives have learned from
Europeans; and they conduct it with great skill. It affords a fur of a jet-black
colour, covered with long silky hairs, which is used by the natives and
Europeans there in ornamenting riding saddlery and in military decorations.
When young, they are of a brown or reddish tint, and thin grey tints
appear preceding the intense black; they then eat buds and shoots and
tender leaves, but in adult age they are fruit consumers. When in captivity
they are sullen and morose, and they will remain sulky for many months.
This the natives know, and therefore they never try to tame them, or to have
them in their houses. In their shape they resemble the last Monkey
described, and their hind limbs are very long, their haunches being high.

NEGRO MONKEY.

They are rather more than two feet long in the body, and the neck
appears short; both shoulders and chest are short and largely made. The tail
is as long as the body and head, and is often slightly tufted at the end. A
mop of hair surrounds the face, and the hairs are long and closely pressed,
and quite conceal the forehead. The nose is peculiar, for the bones of it are
ridged, as it were, and the skin is drawn tight over the open nostril (nares),
so that there is no soft nose. A very considerable space exists between the
nostrils and the mouth, and the lips are small and thin.

THE LONG-NOSED MONKEY.[28]

Of all the remarkable oddities of Nature amongst the many-shaped
Monkeys, the Long-nosed or Proboscis-carrier stands pre-eminent. In fact,
there is nothing in human or ape nature like the face of one particular Long-
tailed Semnopithecus from Borneo. Monkeys have flat noses as a rule,
some have a ridge and a little fleshy mass in which the nostrils end; others,
like the Baboon, have dog-like noses, and the Americans have wide noses,
the nostrils opening well at the sides. In man there is the Roman nose, the
pug, the straight, the flat, the broken, the long with a large end, and the
short with a turn up, but the Nasalis Monkey stands alone amongst the
Primates with a nose of vast proportions, which projects far in advance of
the mouth, and whose nostrils open underneath. It grows with age, and
commences as a small “turn up,” which still is more fleshy and longer than
the nose of any Monkey. The newly-born Nose Monkey is a most
extraordinary object, reminding the critical eye of many youths of weak
constitution and defective brains. Its hair is wonderfully parted down the
middle, and brushed by Dame Nature down the sides of the head and a little
backwards; the whiskers take the latter direction, and the ears stand out just
behind them. It has drooping eyelids, a longish upper lip, with just a little
sign of coming hair, and then there is the funny nose, the upper part like a
boy’s, but the end seems to have been pulled out and turned up, so that the
nostrils are quite at the tip. The face has a tinge of blue about it, and the
animal, even when old enough to be sitting on a tree, looks sad and
melancholy.
They grow to the size of a large Pointer Dog, and are powerful animals,
assembling in troops, and playing and associating probably with the
Orangs. Stuffed specimens of the Proboscis Monkey are usually simple
caricatures, and by no means good ones, for they do not give one-half of the
curious appearance of the face. In nature, and in drawings taken shortly
after death, the first thing that strikes one is the flat top to the head, and the
red hair there, starting from the top of the crown, and radiating in all
directions, and coming as a very sharp line straight over the eyebrows, and
cutting the forehead very short. Then the prodigious nose, stuck out some
inches in front of the mouth, is, with the rest of the face, naked, and of a
reddish-brown flesh-colour. The eyes are wide apart and open, and are of a
hazel colour. The whiskers clasp the face, as it were, and are brushed back,
and join the hair of the neck, whilst the little beard sticks out like a goat’s.
The mouth is wide, and the chin recedes. It is a long-bodied creature, and

there is a great bend outwards in the back when it squats on its haunches.
There is a good-sized chest, there are long arms, still longer legs, and a
great tail. The prevailing colour of the back and shoulders is the red or dark-
red brown of the head hair, whilst the rest of the body is of a lighter tint, the
tail and limbs especially. The thumb of the hand is small, and barely reaches
as far as the first finger-joint, but the toe-thumb is large, widely set from the
foot, and the skin-fold comes far down it, as also does a web between the
toes, the third of which is the longest.

LONG-NOSED MONKEY.

The skull of this Monkey greatly resembles that of the other
Semnopitheci. The face part is smaller in comparison with that of the great
Apes, but then it is not much larger than the brain case. There is a faint
ridge at the side, and the usual one from one ear to the other exists. The
front of the face on each side of the opening for the nose is rather larger and
more prominent than in some other kinds, but there are no evidences of the
existence of the great fleshy and gristly mass which is stuck on in front in

life. This swelling of the front of the face in the skull slightly reminds us of
a greater one which characterises the Dog-faced Baboons, and, moreover,
the similarity is increased by the fact that the upper eye (canine) tooth
presses the first tooth behind the lower eye tooth backwards. These little
peculiarities are inherited gifts, for the Nasalis and the Baboon probably
came from a common ancestor. Perhaps the great fleshy nose of the
Semnopithecus Nasalis is a relic of the long face of the ancient Baboon.
Shorten the bones of the Baboon’s nose, and leave the soft parts, and there
would be left something like the queer features of the Monkey now under
consideration.
One must be struck with the long back-
bone of this Monkey, its single backward
bend, and the long way the ribs seem from
the hips; making it like the Gibbons, and
very unlike the other great Apes, which
have their last ribs close to their hips. The
tail is very long, and starts well up the
back, that is to say, its origin at the end of
the sacrum bone is some distance from the
haunches, on which the creature sits. These
last are rounded so as to afford
comfortable rest, especially as they are
YOUNG LONG-NOSED MONKEY.
covered by the callosities or pads. The feet
are long from the metatarsal bones, and the
great toe-thumb is accompanied by a long,
strong, backward-projecting, and curved-up heel-bone.
The Dyaks call this Monkey the Kaha, for this is the sound which they
make when in companies in the woods by the side of the swamps and
jungles. There they live a restless life at sunrise and sunset, being quieter in
the heat of the day, and crying out at each other. They have fine voices,
thanks to their strength, and perhaps to the air sac in their neck, which may
render oral sounds more resonant. They are active creatures, and bound
from tree to tree, clearing from fifteen to twenty feet with ease.
Being very like extremely ugly humanity, the Dyaks consider them as
degraded men, and they give an excellent reason for their human ancestors

having left their habits and dwellings. They did not like to pay taxes, so
they took to the woods!
It is said that when the ambassadors of Tippoo Saib came to Paris to
urge the French to take up his cause against the British in India, they were
immensely delighted with the Monkeys with the great noses which were
preserved and stuffed in the museum, acknowledging them as compatriots.
But as a matter of fact, specimens of this Monkey never had been and never
could have been seen by these men, for it does not inhabit the peninsula of
India. But it is a fact that when some specimens came over to Paris,
preserved in spirits, they excited a wonderful commotion amongst the
savans. Broderip was present, and saw one drawn forth, “looking like one
of those horrible female fiends sometimes pictured in old woodcuts.

“Not uglier follow the night hag.”

A celebrated French naturalist, who was present at the opening of the
casket which contained this zoological jewel, was in raptures, and as the
bust emerged he uttered an exclamation significatory of her paternity. We
looked in vain for the young imps, which had probably escaped when their
poor barrelled-up mother fell. It must be startling to look round in the
wilderness of Borneo and behold one of these horrible visages peering,
Zamiel-like, from behind the trunk of some dark tree! The impression left
on the mind, however, is rather of the comical than of the terrible in its
nature after seeing these creatures; but one is obliged to admit that those
who see a use in everything may be puzzled to account for this superfluity
of nose, for this greatest of all noses does not appear to be like that of the
Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, “all the better to smell with.”
But some philosophy may be got out of this nose, and it tends to
humiliate the pretensions of those anatomists who can restore an animal if
they can only get hold of a bone or two.
This nose is an anatomical excrescence: cut it off, and no bones are cut
through; dissect the skull, and then no one could tell that there ever had
been such a feature attached to it. The dry bones show no sign of what was
during life, and the skull resembles those of the other Semnopitheci. So that
animals with the same shaped bones may have very different coverings, and

no one could restore the nose of this creature out of his inward
consciousness any more than he could imagine, from the back-bones of the
animals, that camels and dromedaries have humps thereon.
The animal has a huge air sac, which appears to be single, and to enter
the windpipe above the larynx cartilage, and between it and the bone of the
tongue. It opens into the membrane which connects these structures (the
thyroid membrane) on the left side, and the opening can be closed by the
contraction of the muscles which reach from the tongue-bone (os hyoides)
to the larynx cartilage (thyroid cartilage—the thyro-hyoid muscles).
But the most interesting part of the
internal construction of Nasalis is the great
stomach, which does not consist of a
simple bag, with an opening for the food to
enter from the gullet and œsophagus or
food pipe, and with another at the opposite
end to carry the digested food to the
intestines, but is complex, there being
three bags united together. The first two of
these bags are for the storage and reception STOMACH OF THE LONG-NOSED
of food, and the other, which ends in the MONKEY.
canal leading to the intestines, is for its
digestion. This compound stomach is
peculiar to the Semnopitheci and the Colobi amongst the Monkeys. It exists
in the most perfect form in the animals which chew the cud or ruminate,
such as oxen. It is noticed also, more or less, in the Cetacea, or Whale tribe,
in the Sloths, in the Cony, or Hyrax, in the fruit-eating Bats of the genus
Pteropus, and finally in some Kangaroo-like animals. It is possible that the
Semnopitheci may bring back more food into the mouth and chew it again,
or the first two expansions of the stomach may be really simple receptacles
and storehouses grown in the place of the cheek-pouches; or the condition
may be a reversion, or going back, to the condition of some remote
ancestor.
The large intestine is also very bulged out here and there, and this and
the large stomach occupy much space in the cavity of the belly,
compressing the bowels within smaller bounds than in the larger Monkeys.

Bezoars are found in the sacs of the stomach of the different kinds of
Semnopitheci, and were and may be still much prized. They are potent
charms and remedies against poisons, and are supposed to possess
extraordinary virtues. The name comes from the Persian, writes the learned
author of the article “Bezoars,” in the “Penny Cyclopædia”—Pêd-zahr,
expelling poison, the expeller of poison. “Pêd” is relieving and curing, and
“Zahr” is poison. Bezoars are sometimes found in various parts, but chiefly
in the stomachs of land animals. They are either natural or artificial, and as
they are rare, they are worth many times their weight in gold. Those which
were most esteemed in Europe came from the East, and were the earliest
used. The most highly prized came from the stomachs of the wild goat of
Persia, and they were called by way of eminence, Lapis Bezoar Orientalis,
and all such things which were supposed to be antidotes were called
Bezoardic. They are still esteemed in the East, but have long fallen into
disuse in Europe, the chemist and the naturalist having abolished their value
by exposing their real nature. They are the round hard balls which are found
in the stomachs of many animals, and which consist of hair licked off and
swallowed, and food of every clinging nature cemented together by mucus.
They get too large to pass out of the stomach, either by vomiting or by
going through the small canal into the intestine, and therefore become
round by being rolled about, and often very great. Very large ones are
discovered in some horses which are found at work near flour and bran
mills. The Americans got theirs from the Llama, and they consisted
principally of phosphate of lime. Perhaps the earliest of all physics was
bezoardic, and it consisted of the heart and liver of vipers, pounded up for
the benefit of the invalid. Fortunately, bezoars disappeared from the list of
useful drugs years ago, with the crabs’-claws, oyster-shells, powdered
centipedes, and other medical delicacies with which our forefathers were
drenched in good faith and secundum artem.

SUMATRA MONKEY. (From Temminck.)

THE HOONUMAN MONKEY.[29]

This is the most sacred of the sacred Monkeys of the Hindoos, and
when full-grown, measures four feet and a half in length, and the tail is
considerably longer than the body. An ashy-grey tint distinguishes the upper
part of the body, and it is darkest on the tail, which is of equal thickness
throughout. The rest of the body is of a dingy yellow colour, or rusty brown,
and the arms, hands, and feet are dusky black. The long face is blackish;
and above the eyebrows is a line of long stiff projecting black hairs. A

greyish-white beard passes round the face, and extends upwards, and is
thicker in front of the ears, which are long and prominent and black.
Finally, this face has a few hairs by way of a beard beneath the chin, which
projects.
A long-legged, active creature is the Entellus. It associates in great
troops, and they keep up a constant noise and quarrel. Those that abound—
thanks to the belief in their semi-divinity by the Hindoos—near towns and
plantations are certainly more sharp, clever, and impudent than their less
fortunate fellows. They watch and steal with impunity and ability, and are
amusing when young, but savage and disagreeable when old. The young
differ much in shape from the old adults, and their limbs seem very
disproportioned at first. They have a staid look about them, and a tranquil
eye, and the forehead is broad and high, the muzzle only slightly prominent,
and the brain-case large. But with age this alters; the tints of the body get
darker, the body larger, the muzzle elongates, and the forehead appears to
contract, and to be no longer an object of human resemblance. The
disposition changes also, for the tame and amusing young learn a number of
tricks and are full of fun; but this is succeeded by a look and behaviour of
distrust and fierceness.

DOUC.

The Entellus Monkey is not found from Cape Comorin to the
Himalayan Mountains, as is usually asserted; and Captain Hutton has
shown that it is “entirely and absolutely restricted, within narrow limits, to
the hot tropical plains of the north-western Gangetic provinces, where, from
the degree of protection which its imputed ‘odour of sanctity’ is so well
calculated to cast around it, as well as from the numbers in which it
frequently occurs, it becomes a perfect nuisance in those parts of the
country where the superstitious veneration for it most strongly prevails. In
many places where the natives, from religious motives, are in the habit of
feeding and protecting them, the roofs of the village huts are at certain
hours of the day literally crowded with them, and the depredations
committed in grain shops, gardens, and among neighbouring crops, are
most miscreant-like.” The Entellus has been purposely introduced
elsewhere, but is naturally confined to the right banks of the Ganges and
Hooghly. They will not cross water of their own accord, and there appears
to be a notion in the minds of the Hindoos that if there are males on one

side and females on the other bank of the river, and plenty of boats between,
the sexes will never mix, but that the males have great fights together. This
is, however, one of the many fictions of those races who rarely study
Nature. Some of these Monkeys were introduced to Kishunghur, in Lower
Bengal, across the rivers, by devotees, and the offspring of one pair
increased to such an extent as to become a perfect nuisance, so that in 1867
a large number of the native community presented a petition, praying that
measures might be taken by the municipality to destroy some of the too
numerous Monkeys that infested the station, causing fearful havoc among
the fruit and grain. An order was issued, and 500 were killed. “There must
be many thousands,” wrote a correspondent of the Delhi Gazette. This act
was soon succeeded by another petition from a different section of the
native population for the cancelment of the order to kill what they called
their long deceased ancestors. The Entellus is not found in Africa, nor
amongst the Himalayas; neither does it migrate from the upper to the lower
districts of Bengal at special seasons. The Himalayan Semnopitheci are the
Langoor and another—the Semnopithecus pileatus and Semnopithecus
barbei.
It was stated formerly that the Entellus could be seen on Simla all the
year through; but when the snow falls during the winter it seeks a warmer
climate in the depths of the Khuds, returning again to the heights as it melts
away. They may be seen, however, on a fine sunshiny day, even with the
snow on the ground, leaping from tree to tree up and down a hill in Simla,
which is at about an elevation of 8,115 feet. All this is a mistake; and it is
the Langoor, not the Hoonuman, or Entellus, which does all this. It is the
Langoor Monkey which Dr. Royle saw at an elevation of 9,000 feet during
the summer months, and which Captain Hutton observed when on Hatu
mountain, close to Simla, at an elevation of 10,650 feet, and at Simla during
winter with snow four or five inches deep, and frost at night.
Whether the Entellus is found in the Deccan, and to the south, appears
to be matter of doubt but probably the long-tailed Monkeys, seen in
multitudes near houses or only in the forests, belong to a Semnopithecus
closely allied in shape and ornamentation to it. One, the Semnopithecus
Johnii, rarely leaves the forest lands, and is seen in Malabar.
Evidently the natives do not discriminate between the species and the
varieties of it, as we may. They consider all of them possibly to be endowed

with the mind of an ancestor, and that it may be their lot to have their soul
placed within the body of some Monkey or other.
They attribute to the Hoonuman the stealing of the delicious fruit the
mango, and its introduction into Hindostan; but the legend asserts that the
hero Ape who did this, stole the fruit from the garden of a giant, who lived
in Ceylon, and that afterwards he resolved to set fire to Ceylon, and destroy
his enemies by a lighted tar-barrel tied to his tail; but he burnt his hands and
feet black, and they remain so to the present day. Unfortunately for the truth
of this legend, the Entellus never was in Ceylon.
The Entellus is occasionally to be seen in the Zoological Gardens of
London, but it is a very delicate creature. It likes quiet play and some
solemn stillness, and therefore it is not kept with the vivacious African
Monkeys, but with the Long-tailed Americans.
One of the most striking of the Semnopitheci is wonderfully like some
of the Indians of the far west of America in their war-paint, so far as the
head is concerned. This is

THE CROWNED MONKEY.[30]

Its colour is brown, becoming very dark and almost black on the back,
loins, and outsides of the thighs, and around the fore-arms and lower leg.
The muzzle is rather prominent, and there is a white patch over the nose on
the forehead. The crest of long hair sticks up like that of a Cockatoo, and is
rather brushed backwards, whilst a whisker, which is continuous with it,
comes forward and hides the cheeks.
All the proportions of the limbs are those of the genus, and the tail,
which hangs down, is long and slender. It comes from Borneo.

THE RED SEMNOPITHECUS.[31]

This is an active little Monkey, and a great tree climber; it greatly
resembles the last in shape, but it has a shorter muzzle, and the whole body
is a bright reddish-brown, the face being blue and naked, the eyes hazel. A
crest of hair sticks up on the top of the head, and the bulk of it points

backwards, whilst the front comes over the forehead like thatch, and the
whiskers are brushed outwards. It is called Kalassi in Borneo.
This diversity of colouring, which must astonish every one who has
seen Temminck’s beautiful plates of the Semnopitheci, must be received
cautiously as a proof of the different colours meaning different kinds. For in
Semnopithecus chrysomeles the male is dark brown, and only lighter in tint
underneath, whilst the female is light brown, with a splash or two of black
on the front legs. They both have blue faces. In this instance the female and
the male might have been called by different names. The same thing occurs
in the Sumatran Monkey, in which the female is light brown and the male is
a most extraordinary-looking yellow. His hair seems brushed back most
violently, the blue face is very short and straight; he has a reddish chin, a
white throat, inside of arms, and legs, and belly, and under part of tail, but
all the rest is black, with a shade of lighter tint behind the ears and on the
back.
All these are very curious-looking when young, for then the head
appears too big for the body, and the stomach is always large; moreover, the
little Proboscis Monkey looks like a boy with his hair parted down the
front, and who has a blue face and a tail.

THE DOUC, OR VARIEGATED MONKEY.[32]

This Monkey is perhaps the most gaily clad of all this group, and in this
departs in a most marked manner from the dull sameness of the fur of the
Apes already described in the former chapters. Not only is the long hair
very different in colour in several parts of the body, but the hairs themselves
are variegated, having bands of various tints upon them, differing thus from
the whole-coloured hairs of the great Apes.
The animal has the usual shape of the Semnopitheci; but the whiskers
brushed back, as they appear to be, make the naked and orange-coloured
face look broad. These whiskers are long, and are of glossy whiteness, and
above they join the hair of the forehead, which is black in front, gradually
becoming grizzled grey. This is the tint of the head, and of the back of the
neck and back. The thighs, fingers, and toes are black, the legs and ankles
are bright red, fore-arms, throat, and underneath the legs, the buttocks, and

the tail are pure white, and the white throat is surrounded by a more or less
complete circle of bright red. They live in the woods of Cochin China, and
have been met with not far from the coast. They assemble in troops, but
appear to be good-tempered and easily frightened, and this appears to be all
that is known of their nature. But they yielded to the researches of the
anatomist the same internal arrangement of the cavities of the stomach
which has been noticed in describing the Long-nosed Monkey.

THE BLACK-LEGGED DOUC.[33]

The forests on the banks of the Me-kong, near Saigon in Cochin China,
are tenanted by a fine Douc which, instead of having the red legs of the true
Douc (Semnopithecus nemæus), has them of a black colour from the root of
the tail to the tips of the toes. Moreover, in this animal the fore legs are
greyish-black, dotted with white, whilst those of the other Douc are whitish.
Of course these distinctions are not sufficient to separate these Doucs
specifically, and they must be considered races or local varieties, the black-
footed one living more to the south than the other. If this be correct, and it
must be on the principle that a negro and a white man are only races of the
genus Homo, and that a black and a white rabbit are of the same kind,
colour is a point of little importance.
The Black-legged Douc has its face almost naked, and surmounted by a
band of hairs on the forehead. These stand out, and are directed forwards. In
the other Douc these hairs, of a less black tint, are brushed, as it were,
backwards. Now, an attempt has been made by Geoffroy St. Hilaire to
arrange the kinds of Semnopitheci by the direction and peculiarities of their
head-dresses, and if this plan were carried out the true Douc would be in
one section—that of those with the hair brushed back—and the black-
legged one, which is only a variety, and not a separate species, would have
to be placed in another. Hence, this plan is worthless.
This Douc has a very human face and a small head, a large chest, a thin
abdomen, very long hind-legs and tail, and short fore-legs.

CROWNED MONKEY.

The skull of the Douc has large and open orbits, faint side crests, and
faint crests passing from the ear over the occiput. The face is small in
relation to the brain-case, and the shape of the whole differs greatly from
that of the Troglodytes in this respect. The lower jaw is angular behind, and
the portion (the ascending branch or ramus) which leads up to the joint is
very straight. The teeth in it are of the same number as those of the
Gibbons; but the last grinder is long, and has a very distinct heel-like back,
point, or cusp. The other four points, or cusps, are placed two in front and
two behind them, those in front are united by a cross ridge, then comes a
hollow across the tooth, and then the back pairs, which are united by a
ridge, and then the heel follows. The other crushing molar teeth have four
cusps, in pairs, each pair having a common cross ridge, and the pairs are
separated by a furrow. The teeth are close together, and the first false molar
is smaller than the second. The upper jaw projects a little, and the front jaw-
bone (pre-maxillary) remains distinct. Its crushing teeth have four points, or

cusps, but the outline of the teeth is not straight at the sides, but doubly
curved, so that the entrance of the curves is between the cusps, and it
corresponds to the furrow. All this gives a very animal look to the teeth.
It must be remembered that these teeth are used more for crushing soft
vegetable matters than for cracking nuts, and things which can be stowed
away in a cheek-pouch and devoured at leisure. Hence the difference
between the teeth of these and of the Macaques.

THE CEYLON LOW-COUNTRY WANDEROO—THE WHITE-BEARDED MONKEY.[34]

“When observed in their native wilds,” writes Sir James Emerson
Tennent, “a party of twenty or thirty of these creatures are generally busily
engaged in the search for berries and buds. They are seldom to be seen on
the ground, and then only when they have descended to recover seeds or
fruit that have fallen at the foot of their favourite trees. In their alarm, when
disturbed, their leaps are prodigious, but generally speaking their progress
is made not so much by leaping as by swinging from branch to branch,
using their powerful arms alternately, and when baffled by distance,
flinging themselves obliquely so as to catch the lower boughs of an
opposite tree, the momentum acquired by their descent being sufficient to
cause a rebound, that sends then again upwards, till they can grasp a higher
branch, and thus continue their headlong flight.”

PRIAMUS MONKEY. (After Tennent.)

This Monkey is very active and intelligent, and is not very mischievous,
and, indeed, is much less so than the other Monkeys of Ceylon. In captivity
it is remarkable for the gravity of its behaviour, and for an air of melancholy
in its expression and movements, which is completely in character with its
snowy beard and venerable aspect. Its disposition is gentle and confiding; it
is in the highest degree sensible of kindness, and eager for endearing
attentions, uttering a low plaintive cry when its sympathies are excited. It is
particularly cleanly in its habits when domesticated, and spends much of its
time in cleaning its fur, and carefully divesting it of the least particle of
dust.

The Nestor is about sixteen inches in length (the body and head), and
the tail measures twenty inches. The prevailing colour is a deep grey, with a
slight tinge of brown, becoming paler on the back of the neck and on the
tail, where the previous tinge is more marked. The hands and lower part of
the limbs are nearly black. Its lips, chin, and whiskers are nearly pure white,
the tips of the latter, which are brushed backwards, being grey. There is a
stiff ridge of black hairs over the eyebrows, and they are about an inch and
a half in length. The moderate length of the hairs, the light colour and the
white of the lower sides of the face, are distinctive. It inhabits the southern
and western provinces of Ceylon, and is found at a higher elevation than
even 1,300 feet.

THE MAHA, THE GREAT WANDEROO.[35]

This is a larger Monkey than the last, and lives in the hills higher up the
country of Ceylon than the Nestor. It is wilder and more powerful than its
lowland neighbour, and is rarely seen by Europeans. It clings to the deep
woods, and seldom approaches the few roads which have been made
through these solitudes. There is a good deal of the Bear in its general
appearance, and Major Forbes, travelling in Ceylon, noticed this first of all.
He says:—“A species of very large Monkey, that passed some distance
before me, when resting on all-fours looked so like a Ceylon Bear that I
took him for one.” Hence the name Ursinus.
Another very rare Monkey in Ceylon is, for some hidden cause, named
Semnopithecus Thersites. Thersites was the most ugly and the most
impudent talker of the Greeks before Troy, and probably this Monkey is
ugly and impudent in the extreme. It is deficient in the head-tuft, which
adds to the beauty of the genus; but its temper is good, and it is grateful.
One which was caught was fond of being noticed and petted, stretching out
his limbs in succession to be scratched, drawing himself up so that his ribs
might be reached by the finger, and closing his eyes during the operation,
evincing his satisfaction by grimaces absolutely ludicrous. He was fond of
fresh vegetables, plantains, and fruit, and ate freely of boiled rice, beans,
and grain.
The last Ceylonese Monkey to be noticed is the Semnopithecus
Priamus.

It inhabits the northern and eastern provinces, and the wooded hills
which occur in those portions of the island. In appearance it differs both in
size and in colour from the common Wanderoo (S. Nestor), being larger and
greyer, and its habits are much less reserved. Where the population is
comparatively numerous, these Monkeys become so familiarised with the
presence of man as to exhibit the utmost daring and indifference. A flock of
them will take possession of a Palmyra palm, and so effectually can they
crowd and conceal themselves among the leaves that, on the slightest
danger, the whole party becomes invisible on the instant. The presence of a
Dog, however, excites such an irrepressible curiosity, that, in order to watch
his movements, they never fail to betray themselves. They may be seen
frequently congregated on the roof of a native hut; and some years ago the
child of a European clergyman having been left on the ground by the nurse,
was so teased and bitten by them as to cause its death. The Ceylon people
hold the singular belief that the remains of a Monkey are never found in the
forest—a belief which they have embodied in a proverb, that “He who has
seen a white crow, the nest of the piddybird, a straight cocoa-nut tree, or a
dead Monkey, is certain to live for ever.” “This piece of folk-lore has
evidently reached Ceylon from India,” writes Sir J. Emerson Tennent, from
whose work the extract is taken, “where it is believed that persons dwelling
on the spot where a Hoonuman Monkey (Semnopithecus entellus) has been
killed, will die, and that even its bones are unlucky, and that no house
erected where they are hid will prosper. Hence, when a house is to be built,
one of the employments of wise men is to ascertain by their science that
none such are concealed; and Buchanan observes that it is perhaps owing to
the fear of this ill-luck that no native will acknowledge having seen a dead
Hoonuman.”
Sir J. Emerson Tennent describes the method in which these Priamus
Monkeys attack a garden, which is quite after the fashion of modern human
military tactics. A green sward separated the garden of one of his friends
from the jungle, and across this a single Monkey would cautiously steal
about twenty paces, and halt to assure himself, by eye and ear, that all was
safe. Presently a second would venture out from the trees, pass in front of
the first, and squat himself after making another reconnaissance. A third and
a fourth would then stealthily approach, always gaining an advance beyond
the last vedette, and finally the whole body, having ascertained the absence
of danger, advanced hastily but noiselessly to the enclosure; and having

with infinite rapidity secured a sufficient supply of fruit, the troop dispersed
simultaneously, with a rush and an exulting scamper, conscious that caution
was no longer necessary. Possibly this Monkey becomes occasionally an
albino, for white Monkeys having the general shape of the Priamus are
captured every now and then not far from Colombo; and Spence Hardy
mentions, in his work on “Eastern Monachism,” that on the occasion of his
visit to the Great Temple of Dambool he encountered a troop of white
Monkeys on the rock on which it is situated.
In the Semnopitheci and in the species of the next genus (Colobos) the
face is long, the forehead rounded, and there is a decided angle to the jaw,
so that the facial angle is considerable.[36]

GENUS COLOBOS.[37]

All the Monkeys of the genus Semnopithecus which have been found by
travellers and naturalists live in Asia and its islands, and thus their
geographical limit is precise. Now, there are some Monkeys which
resemble them in most points, and which are only found in the forests of
tropical Africa; that is to say, in Abyssinia on the east, and from Gambia to
Angola on the west. They are also found on the Island of Fernando Po.
These have the thumbs of the hands extremely small, and they are but mere
useless projections. They are Semnopitheci without thumbs, and the Greek
word κολοβός (“docked or stunted”) has been used to designate them.
The kinds of Monkeys included in the genus Colobos are not very
numerous, and they are interesting more on account of their beautiful skins,
which form ornaments and articles of commerce in Africa, and for those
suggestions which must occur to the mind of every one who thinks a little
about natural history, regarding the cause of the absence of such an
important structure as the thumb in a group of animals, whose other
characters are similar to those of a genus possessing it. Very little is known
about their habits in a state of nature, and few have ever been brought alive
to Europe.
The thumb is not seen in the least in one kind of Colobos, the true
Colobos (Colobos verus); in others it is like a little knob, but in none is it of
any use. In the corresponding member of other Monkeys there are three

bones, one placed before the other. The first, the metacarpal, is the nearest
the wrist, and is jointed to the wrist-bone called trapezium, and in front it is
in contact with the second bone, or the first phalanx of the thumb. This is
ended by the second phalanx, which bears the nail. These are terms used by
anatomists, and the word metacarpal means “the next in order of rank to the
wrist.” These metacarpal bones intervene between the knuckles and the
wrist, and are long and parallel with each other, there being five in the hand.
They are not usually very movable on the wrist, but that of the thumb is,
and they have a joint at the further end which unites them with the so-called
internode or phalanx-bone, No. 1. The word internode means between
joints, and the term phalanx is one of those unmeaning applications of
Greek terms which abound in anatomy. The phalanx was an order of battle,
and means rows placed in parallel order: the internodes of the fingers, when
in place, are one before the other and side by side, like the soldiers in the
Greek order of battle. Each phalanx represents a bone: there are two in the
thumb, and three in the other fingers. In the Colobos there is a joint on the
wrist-bone for a thumb, but no thumb exists, but there is just a little vestige
of a bone, and it is probably the first phalanx, or internode, and not the
metacarpal.
The thumb is therefore “rudimentary” in the genus Colobos, and why?
The animals are tree-climbers and active jumpers, and can run very well on
all-fours; in fact, their method of life and of motion is that of the Monkeys
which have well-formed thumbs. The notion of a useless organ is at first
repulsive to our ideas of the benevolent scheme of Nature. Mr. Darwin
writes, “In reflecting on them every one must be struck with astonishment;
for the same reasoning power which tells us plainly that most parts and
organs are exquisitely adapted for certain purposes tells us with equal
plainness that these rudimentary or atrophied organs are imperfect or
useless.” Let us take a well-known instance of such a structure: the Calf
when born has cutting teeth in its upper jaw hidden in the gum; they are not
in sockets, and even if they were, they would be of no use in biting. The Ox
has no cutting or incisor teeth in its upper jaw, as every one knows, and the
tongue touches a hard and moist gum there. The incisor teeth of the Calf are
never cut, but they are gradually absorbed in the gum with age. Now what
is their meaning? They are of no use in sucking, or in anything which
occurs in the early life of the animal: they are clearly useless and
rudimentary or atrophied structures. Take another example: the little Kiwi

bird of New Zealand has no wings with which to fly, yet the bones are there
in a dwarfed and rudimentary condition; many insects have no wings, or
have them so reduced in size that they are of no use in flight, and
sometimes the males have them in perfection, and the females have none. In
explaining this subject two courses are open, first, to beg the question, and
to say that the design of the Creator was thus; or to account for it on the
principle that the Creator acts by law, and that creatures become modified
and altered by inherent power, and by having to obey the force of
surrounding circumstances generation after generation.

COLOBOS VERUS. (After Van Beneden.)

In the instance of the male and female insect just noticed, the male is
active, and has to search for his partner, and the female is a stay-at-home,
and expects to be courted, and when mated to do nothing more than lay
eggs. Her wings would be of doubtful value. We may believe, then, that
disuse, generation after generation, gradually weakened the wing, and
finally Nature, ever economical in not-used organs, did not perpetuate it.

Disuse may be therefore considered as the principal cause of the atrophy,
rudimentary condition, and of the final deficiency of structures. But disuse
will not produce this in one generation, but in many, so it is necessary to
look farther back into the ancestry of the creatures which have rudimentary
organs. The four-legged ruminating or cud-chewing animals have bones and
feet of peculiar arrangement, and there is no difficulty in at once knowing a
ruminant by its bones. Now, in former ages, and before there was a trace of
man on the globe, there were ruminants, as known by their bones found in
strata or deposits, and they had incisor teeth in their upper jaws when full
grown, and not only when in the calf condition. The inference to be drawn
is, that the modern Oxen are the descendants of those ancient forms with
incisor teeth, and that disuse, probably produced by the introduction of
grass-feeding on a grand scale, instead of leaf-and bud-nibbling, gradually
diminished the strength and permanence of the front upper teeth, and finally
only left the simple traces of them which we have mentioned. Disuse by
ancestral forms, by the forefathers, and the carrying down the weakened
and atrophied state of the structure or organs, are the most important
considerations in any attempt at the explanation of the seeming paradox. In
endeavouring to apply this style of reasoning to the Colobos group—the
Semnopitheci without thumbs—it must be asked, is there any evidence of
the great antiquity of these Monkeys, and are there any evidences of
anything wrong about the thumbs of their Asiatic allies?

GUEREZA.

It is remarkable, and bears strongly upon this point, that some of the
fossil remains of animals found in India, on the flanks of the Himalayan
Mountains, have a closer resemblance to a large Semnopithecus Monkey
than to any other, and to one belonging to a kind much like the Entellus.
The bony remains were found in collections of shingle, clay, and sand of
great depth, and which included also the remains of the bones of Elephants,
Giraffes, Hippopotamidæ, Crocodiles, and fresh-water Tortoises, and other
land and fresh-water creatures. The deposits had accumulated in lakes and
swamps in the plain near the distant flanks of a low range of hills, the
ancient foundations of the present great snowy range, and then upheaval
took place, which gave the very home of snow (Himalaya) its present vast
altitude. The plains, lakes, and swamps were lifted up and tilted, and their
relics are now found resting at a considerable angle on the main chain, and
covered and folded over by the pressure exercised during the marvellous
change in the physical geography of the district. Semnopitheci lived in
India, then, before the Himalayas were a great chain of mountains, and they
lived with animals which were African as well as Asiatic in their character.
The vast age of the groups of Monkeys must be admitted, for the Himalayas

are as old as the Alps, and as both have been worn down into their present
condition of peak, pass, and valley since they were uplifted, their age is
incalculable by years. The former connection of Africa and Asia by means
of intermediate land, which is now the floor of the Indian Ocean, to the
west of Hindostan, may be reasonably asserted to have been severed at the
same time when the mountains far away to the north-east received their
breadth and height. So that before these great terrestrial changes occurred,
Semnopitheci could have either an Indian or an African home. Disuse of the
fore-thumbs in branch-crawling or swinging may then have commenced
before that geological age in which these things happened, and it may have
progressed very decidedly in Africa, and not so much in Asia. Hence the
Semnopitheci here have rather small thumbs, and the African groups,
separated by the physico-geographical change, and disusing generation after
generation, have gradually lost the structure.
The Colobi resemble the Semnopitheci in the construction of their
compound-looking stomach.

THE GUEREZA.[38]

There is something very un-monkey-like in the shape of this Abyssinian
animal, for it has long white hair, resembling the edge of a cloak, along its
sides, and a long tail with a tuft to it. The natives chase it, and are fond of
having some of their long hairy skins to cover their shields with.
Assembling in little troops, the Guereza keeps well up in the tallest trees, in
the neighbourhood of running water. They feed on fruit, grain, and insects,
and are inoffensive and wild. The fur is certainly very prettily arranged, and
the black and white truly oppose each other well. The colour of the fur of
the head and of the greater part of the body is black, but the forehead is
white, so are the sides of the face, the throat, and the sides of the neck.
There is a mantle-like mop of long hairs starting from the region near the
ribs, and the lower part of the back, and covering the flanks in a train
behind. It is of a white colour, and exists in both sexes; nevertheless, it is
longest in the females and adults. The tail is white, hairy, and tufted.

Another of the Colobi has a very dignified look given to it by a large
mass of hair which covers its neck and shoulders like a little cloak. It has
slim legs and a long tail. For some reason or other the natives in the
neighbourhood of Sierra Leone call it the King of the Monkeys. The face
and limbs and body are black, and a great mass of hair starting from the
forehead and brushed back from the sides of the face and chin, the neck and
shoulders all round, falls down on all sides. This is of a dusky yellow
colour. The tail is white. It is called the Cloaked or Many-haired Colobos
(Colobos polycomos).
As if to contrast kinds of the genus Colobos, which have great general
resemblances, Nature has provided some with red-coloured fur, instead of
black and white; for instance, the Bay Monkey (Colobos ferrugineus); and
finally, one very interesting species which, like all those mentioned, except
the Guereza, comes from West Africa; it has a short fur of an olive colour,
with a grey tint beneath and on the limbs. It has no long hairs on the body,
and its tail is long and thin. This Colobos verus has not a vestige of a
thumb. There are eleven species of this genus.
Besides the fossil Semnopithecus found in the Himalayas others have
been discovered in Greece, Würtemberg, and at Montpellier, and in strata of
Mid-Tertiary and of Pliocene Age.

CHAPTER VI.
THE DOG-SHAPED MONKEYS (continued). THE GUENONS.[39]

THE GUENONS—Where they are Found—Early Notices of them—Resemblance to the
Colobi and Macaques—Distinctive Peculiarity of the Group—Often seen in
Menageries—Their Terror of Snakes—Peculiar Expression of the Face—Beauty of
their Skins—Minor Divisions of the Guenons—THE DIANA MONKEY—Origin of the
Name—Anecdotes of their Mischief—THE MONA MONKEY—Description of one at
Paris—THE WHITE-NOSED MONKEY—Origin of the Name—THE TALAPOIN—
Anatomical Peculiarities—THE GREEN MONKEY—Found in Senegal in abundance—
THE RED-BELLIED MONKEY—THE RED MONKEY—Observed by Bruce—THE
MANGABEY—Singularity of its Appearance—Special Structural Peculiarities

THERE are vast numbers of Monkeys living in the African forests which
resemble, to a certain extent, those described in the last chapter, but which
have such important differences in their construction that they are separated
from them, and collected in another genus. They are said only to range in
Abyssinia to the Zambesi and from the Gambia to the Congo, but probably
all the equatorial parts of the Continent are frequented by them, and they
extend far south. They are not found in Madagascar, and, of course, they do
not frequent desert places or rocky treeless districts.
Being very numerous, and extremely impudent, as a rule, and full of
grimace and mischief, they soon attracted the attention of the ancients, and
the beauty of the fur of some made them all the more prized. Hence they
were caught, figured, and sent as presents to distant kingdoms. The ancient
Egyptians knew of one, which at the present time is found in Nubia, and
which is often brought to Europe, being called the Grivet. They engraved it
in the catacombs of Ghizeh, whence the figure was described by Denon,
and Ehrenberg and De Blainville have drawn it as represented mounted on
the long neck of a Camelopard. Many coloured drawings of Egyptian origin
also represent a Monkey on all-fours, with a tail curved over its back, and
this is probably one of those about to be considered.
They are still called Keb or Kep in the East of Africa, and they are
doubtless the κῆβος of the Greeks. Aristotle says for certain that the Cebus,
as it was translated by the Latins, is an Ape with a tail.

Modern naturalists, having become acquainted with many of these
species closely resembling each other in some important particulars, have
arranged them all under the term Cercopithecus from κέρκος (a tail), and
πίθηκος (an ape). The grimaces and odd gestures of these Monkeys have
given to them the name of Guenons, and this term is now used accordingly.
At first sight they resemble the Colobi, inasmuch as they have long
bodies, long hind legs, and long tails, but the fore limbs are short in the
Guenons, and the tail, which is as long or longer than the body, is stout and
not slender. Moreover, they have well-made and exceedingly useful cheek-
pouches, besides the callosities behind. The face of the Guenons is long,
and rounded, and the eyes are somewhat prominent. On examining the
inside of one of these particularly African species the stomach is found to
be single, and not to resemble that of the genera last described, and on
looking at the lower jaw it will be found that the last crushing teeth on each
side have only four points, or cusps, and not five, as in Semnopitheci. The
wearing of the first premolar tooth next to the lower dog tooth, and behind
it, resembles somewhat that noticed before, and which will be described in
treating of the Inui, or Macaques, in the next chapter. The hands and feet are
well grown, and the thumbs are long and useful.
So that the distinctive peculiarity, or what is called the diagnosis of the
group, or genus Cercopithecus is—Monkeys with long hind and short fore
limbs, and with long tails, cheek-pouches, single stomachs, and callosities,
there being only four cusps on the last lower molar teeth.

DIANA MONKEY.

Many of the Guenons are often seen in menageries and zoological
gardens, or as the more or less unwilling companions of organ-grinders; and
their trick of crowding everything into their mouth, and allowing it to
distend the cheeks, is sure to be noticed. The quantity of nuts which can be
stored away is enough for a good meal; and hence these Monkeys are not
only good purveyors for themselves, but great robbers of the riches of
cultivators. In the wild state they assemble in troops in the forest, for they
are essentially tree dwellers, and make raids on all sides of their favourite
home, moving with such rapidity under the shadow of leaves and boughs
that they are rarely seen by men. In their own little tract of forest they are
very noisy and restless; they chase away in a body all intruding Monkeys,
and whilst the more aged spend their time in more or less restless

movement, in occasional family jars, and in picking the insects from their
young and from each other, the juvenile part of the troop are full of play,
mischief, and wanton aggression upon the quietude of their elders. A Snake
may appear, and there is a terrible noise made, and a general rush off out of
danger, the little ones clinging to the fur of the mother, and being carried off
safely in spite of her bounds and jumps from tree to tree. Or a Leopard may
make a spring, and not always fruitlessly, and great is the surrounding
howling and grimacing at it. The hatred of Snakes is carried into their
captivity; and Mr. Darwin having read Brehm’s account of the instinctive
fear which his Monkeys had of Serpents, and also of their great curiosity
regarding snake-like things and their doings, took a stuffed Snake to the
Monkey-house of the Zoological Gardens. The excitement which was
produced, he writes, was one of the most curious spectacles ever beheld.
Three species of Cercopithecus were the most alarmed. They darted about
their cages, and uttered sharp cries of danger, which were understood by the
other Monkeys. A few young Monkeys and an old Anubis Baboon alone
took no notice of the Snake. He then placed the stuffed specimen on the
ground in one of the larger compartments. After a time all the Monkeys
collected round it in a large circle, and staring intently, presented a most
ludicrous appearance. They became extremely nervous, so that when a
wooden ball with which they were familiar as a plaything was accidentally
moved in the straw under which it was partly hidden, they all instantly
started away. These monkeys behaved very differently when a fish, a
mouse, and some other new objects were placed in the cage; for though at
first frightened they soon approached, handled and examined them. He then
placed a living Snake in a paper bag, with the mouth closed loosely, in one
of the larger compartments. One of the Monkeys immediately approached,
cautiously opened the bag a little, peeped in, and instantly dashed away.
Then he witnessed what Brehm has described, for Monkey after Monkey
with head raised high, and turned on one side, could not resist taking
momentary peeps into the upright bag at the dreadful creature lying at the
bottom.
It would appear as if Monkeys had some notion of zoological affinities,
for those kept by Brehm exhibited a strange though mistaken instinctive
dread of innocent Lizards and Frogs.

Birds of prey attack them, and not
always with a successful result; and there
is a story of a little Guenon being darted at
by an Eagle, who swooped down and
struck it, but it did not get off, for a rush
was made against the bird by several of the
active elders, and they not only held it, but
nearly plucked off all its feathers, so that
when it got away it remembered for ever
after the treatment it received. The
Guenons are very choleric, and the
expression of the face and of the mouth,
and the shrill sounds which are emitted
FACE OF THE DIANA MONKEY.
when they are angered, would probably be
accompanied by extremely bad language
were they men; but their rage is soon over, and some mutual tail-pulling and
biting are the worst part of it. There is a curious defiant look about the eyes
of some, with or without extreme restlessness of them; they seem to be the
very embodiment of cunning and sharpness, and this look is really very
peculiar to the group. By way of additional force of expression, those which
are very fond of fighting with their teeth have the power of drawing back
their ears like angry Dogs; and this is done by the action of a muscle which
springs from the ear-bone behind the ear, and is attached to it behind. There
is just a rudiment of this muscle in man. Usually very good-tempered when
young, like all the Quadrumana, they grow cross, savage, and uncertain in
temper when old; there are some exceptions to this, but, on the other hand,
so savage do some of them become, that breaking or removing their great
upper canine teeth appears to be the only way of making them behave at all
properly. The loss of these fine weapons of offence has a most humiliating
effect on the most insolent and petulant of them. Many are very pretty, and
are as elaborately coloured as the Douc, that prince of beautiful
Semnopitheci; and this leads to their destruction, for every now and then,
besides the native desire to have some fine Monkey skins, European ladies
desire Monkey muffs, and many an irascible chatterer out of the woods of
Western Africa has its skin paraded by the fashion. Bright red, green, fawn,
yellow, and white colours are constantly mixed up with black shades, and
every tint of grey is clotted here and there. The hair is longer in some parts

than in others, especially about the cheeks and chin; one has a white spot on
its nose, another has white moustaches, and a third a white band across the
forehead. And these tints, and the disproportion of the long hairs, have
served to identify the different kinds.
The Guenons occasionally breed in menageries, and thus opportunities
have been afforded of watching their treatment of, and method of educating,
their little ones. One in Paris had three baby Monkeys, one after the other,
and succeeded in rearing one, the others dying. She constantly carried it,
holding it close to her, so that its little mouth was always close to the breast;
but after a while, as it became stronger, it clung on by itself, holding on fast
with its hands to the mother’s fur, and helped itself whenever it thought fit.
Then the mother appeared to pay no especial attention to the little one, and
jumped and rushed about as if it had not the little burden. The father was
anything but paternal, and boldly neglected the education of his child; in
fact, he was quite indifferent to the mother as well, and even behaved
brutally by seeking to quarrel with her. Once or twice he maltreated her, and
pinched the baby, so he was locked up by himself.
This careless treatment doubtless accounts for the rapid independence of
the young of the Guenons, who soon retaliate on their fathers and mothers
for all the enjoyments they did not have at their hands, by endless teasings
and scoldings. But all Monkeys are not thus unpaternal and unnatural, and
the Baboon is singularly affectionate. At the time that the Grivet—the
above-mentioned Guenon—was seen in one cage outraging all good
feeling, two Chacma Baboons were in another, and the difference in their
behaviour was most edifying. In the one cage sat the solitary mother and its
offspring, the father having been removed for his bad temper and brutal
conduct; and in the other were several male Baboons surrounding two
Baboon mothers and their two little ones, caressing the mothers with the
most pronounced evidence of tenderness of feeling, taking them in their
arms and pressing them to their hearts, and embracing them in a manner
quite human. They squabbled about who was to have the pleasure of
carrying the Baboon babies, and after having passed them from one to the
other, returned each one to its own mother.
As these Guenons walk on all-fours and but rarely take on the erect
posture, which, moreover, they cannot maintain, their muscles are not
exactly the same as in the Troglodytes and Orangs, but they resemble those

of the Semnopitheci. The Guenons, like the Macaques and Baboons—those
great runners on all-fours—have a special muscle to assist in pulling the
shoulder-blade forward, and thus to assist the forward motion of the body.
Then, in order to drag the elbow backwards in moving on all-fours, and to
assist also in climbing, one of the large muscles of the back sends a slip to
the back of the elbow. Climbing is also assisted by an addition to the gluteal
or buttock muscles, which is called the scansorius or climbing muscle. And
in the foot the front muscle of the leg has two masses; one sends a tendon
which goes to the inner and front bone of the ankle, and the other right
under the foot to the inner side of the long bone (metatarsal), which
supports the toe-thumb.
The result of its action is to turn in the foot with a view to holding on.
Finally, the two long muscles which flex or bend down the toe-thumb and
the other toes are not separate, but are connected by their tendons. So that
there is not great independence of the toe-thumb, but all the toes act more or
less simultaneously very readily. But the other muscles of it give it more
mobility than in man. Their muscular energy is immense, and their power of
using the thumb is very considerable, and they pick out each other’s vermin
with well-known ease.
In separating the numerous kinds of Guenons into kinds or species,
paying a good amount of attention to their internal as well as external
structures, that is to say, to their teeth and skull, as well as to their form, it
becomes evident that some large ones form a group which closely resemble
the others, but which still have more general likeness to the Monkeys which
form the subject of the next chapter—the Macaques. These have been
placed in a separate genus, but the necessity for doing so is not apparent,
especially when the principles of the true nature of classification have been
thoroughly comprehended. So the so-called genus Cercocebus (κέρκος, tail;
κῆβας, monkey) is omitted, and the Monkeys included in it by some authors
are to be considered as the kinds which link on the Baboons and Macaques
to the Guenons. Besides these, some Guenons are stronger and stouter than
others, their skins being green, or tinted more or less with that colour, and
another is of a bright red colour. So that several sets of the Guenons may be
established for the sake of convenience—1. The smaller kinds usually with
prominent white markings. 2. One having a green skin and a black nose,
and only three points or cusps on its hind lower molars. 3. The larger kinds

with decidedly green tints, one being bright red. 4. And the group often
called Cercocebus, which resemble the others, but have a fifth cusp on the
last lower grinder on each side.
Amongst the first kind the Diana Monkey is very well known, and
visitors to the Monkey-house in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s
Park usually pay much attention to this most determined and pretty romp.

THE DIANA MONKEY.[40]

This native of Western Africa inhabits the woods of the Guinea Coast,
and of the banks of the Congo, and it is found in the island of Fernando Po.
It was known to European naturalists before the year 1700, and it has
always been prized for its pretty fur and gay temper.
The goddess Diana has been honoured by being associated with this
Monkey on account of a crescent-shaped white band of long hair stretching
across the forehead (she being goddess of the crescent-shaped moon). It is
about eighteen inches long when full grown, and the tail is longer than the
body, and the fur is very pretty. The crescent of white hairs has dark edges,
and the top of the head is broad and dull grey, spotted with green; the ears
are dark and the face also; and the beard and whiskers are white, and the
first of these projects like a goat’s. The broad and upper chest is white, and
this colour is continued under the arms, which at their termination are
black-grey. The middle of the back is a dark red-brown, and the belly is
white with orange tints, and these colours are continued down the inside of
the thighs. Outside these and the flanks are ash-grey and greenish. As
another Monkey from the same region has a white band across the forehead,
the Diana has been confounded with it, and hence very different
descriptions of the colouring will be obtained by reading different authors,
and even F. Cuvier jumbled the Diana and this Diadem Monkey together.
Very little is known about them in their wild state, and in captivity they
show very adverse dispositions; sometimes they are gay and full of fun, and
at others morose and snappish. We once saw one of them in its cage in the
Zoological Gardens pull its mate, a small Sykes’ Monkey, from the top to
the bottom by a well-directed pull of the tail, and the proceeding reminded
one of a very energetic mistress, whose servants were inattentive, tugging at
a bell-rope. The puller was chattering and grimacing at his visitors all the

time that the pulled was hanging on to everything that came in its way
during its forced descent; and when it came to the bottom it scrambled
about and rushed up to its little house again as if it were a frequent and
unwilling exercise. The Diana also stole its companion’s food, such as a
piece of apple, by putting her arms around its neck, and squeezing the
morsel against its nose, so that it was obliged to drop it.
Mrs. Bowditch, in describing her voyage home from Western Africa,
gives an interesting account of a Diana Monkey which was on board. “We
made acquaintance,” she says, “very suddenly, and, to me, disagreeably, for
I had not till then conquered the foolish aversion with which these animals
always inspired me. It was a dead calm, the wheel was lashed, and all, save
myself, below—nothing round us but sea and sky, and I had sheltered
myself with a book in a corner protected from the equatorial sun. Suddenly,
and without noise, something leaped upon my shoulders, and the tail which
encircled my throat convinced me that Mr. Jack was my assailant. My first
impulse was to beat him off, in which case I should probably have received
some injury; but fortunately I sat perfectly still, and twisting himself round
he brought his face opposite to mine and stared at me. I endeavoured to
speak kindly to him, upon which he grinned and chattered, seated himself
on my knees, and carefully examined my hands. He then tried to pull off my
rings, and was proceeding to a bite for this purpose when I gave him some
biscuit which happened to lie beside me, and making a bed for him with a
handkerchief he settled himself comfortably to sleep, and from that moment
we were sworn allies. The amusement afforded to me and others by Jack
made him tolerated when his mischievous propensities would otherwise
have condemned him to perpetual confinement. He was often banished to
an empty hen-coop, but as this made no impression upon him I always tried
to prevent it, which he knew so well that when he had done wrong he either
hid himself or sought refuge near me. Much more effect was produced by
taking him within sight of the Panther, who always seemed most willing to
devour him. On these occasions I held him by the tail in front of the cage,
but long before I reached it, knowing where he was going, he pretended to
be dead—his eyes were closed quite fast, and every limb was as stiff as if
there were no life in him. When taken away he would open one eye a little
to see whereabouts he might be, but if he caught a glimpse of the cage it
was instantly closed, and he became as stiff as before. He clambered into
the hammocks, stole the men’s knives, tools, handkerchiefs, and even the

nightcaps off their heads, all of which went into the sea. When biscuit was
toasting between the bars of the caboose, and the dried herbs boiling in the
tin mugs, he would take the former out and carry it away, and take out the
latter and trail them along the planks; if he burnt his hands he desisted for a
day or two; and he often regaled the Parrots with the biscuit, biting it in
small pieces, and feeding them with the utmost gravity. At other times he
would knock their cages over, lick up the water thus spilled, eat the lumps
of sugar, and pull the birds’ tails: and in this manner he killed a beautiful
green Pigeon belonging to the steward, a specimen of which I never saw in
any collection. For this he was flogged and imprisoned three days; and half
an hour after he was let out I met him scampering round the deck with two
blue-faced Monkeys on his back, which he often carried about in this
manner. When he thought fit to ride, he would watch behind a cask on the
days the Pigs were let loose, dart on to their backs as they passed, dig his
nails into them to keep himself on, and the faster they ran and the more they
squealed the happier he seemed to be. His most important misdemeanours,
however, were performed to the injury of his fellow Monkeys, of whom he
was very jealous. The smaller ones were very obsequious to him, and when
he called them by a peculiar noise, they came, hanging their heads and
looking very submissive, and in one week two were drowned out of sheer
malice. I saw him throw the first overboard, and the poor little thing swam
after us some time, but the ship was going too fast for even a rope to be
effectually thrown out in the hope he would cling to it. During one of the
calms we so often met with, the men had been painting the outside of the
ship, and leaving their pots and brushes on the deck, went down to dinner.
No one was above but myself, the helmsman, and Jack. The latter beckoned
and coaxed a black Monkey to him; then seizing him by the neck, took a
brushful of white paint, and deliberately covered him with it in every
direction. The helmsman and I burst into a laugh, upon which Jack,
dropping his victim, flew up the rigging into the maintop, where he stood
with his black nose between the bars peeping at what was going on below.
The little metamorphosed beast began licking himself, but the steward
being summoned, he washed him with turpentine, and no harm was
sustained. Many attempts were made to catch the rogue aloft, but he eluded
all, and when he was driven down by hunger, he watched his opportunity
and sprang from one of the ropes on to my lap, where he knew he should be
safe. I fed and interceded for him, so he escaped with only a scolding,

which he received with an appearance of shame which in him was rather
ludicrous.”

THE MONA MONKEY.[41]

The term Mona means tailed Apes or Monkeys, and it has been
especially given to one from Senegal, which has some resemblance to the
Diana, and it is mentioned here with a view of illustrating its mental
peculiarities. They are more beautiful in colour and more elegant in form
than the Diana, and they are sometimes more gentle, sagacious, and sharp
than any other kind. F. Cuvier describes one which was a great favourite in
the collection at Paris. Upon his arrival he was extremely young, and his
gentleness and total want of malice and petulance gained him the free range
of the apartment. Age did not alter the excellence of his disposition; and as
he increased in age and strength, his address and agility became
unparalleled. Yet all his motions were gentle, and his actions circumspect;
he was persevering in his wants and wishes, but never violent in the attempt
to enforce them. When after much solicitation his requests were refused, he
would go off in a gambol, and find entertainment in some new object. He
had no idea of property, but took every thing that pleased him, even such
articles as had previously caused him punishment, and he committed his
thefts with dexterity and silence. He would open locks wherein the key had
been left, untie knots, open the links of a chain, and search pockets with so
much address that you did not feel his hand there, although conscious of the
fact that he was thieving. The examination of pockets was his favourite
occupation, doubtless from expecting to find food. He was not very
affectionate, but when tranquil, and not engaged, he received caresses with
pleasure. When tempted to play he signified his assent by many graceful
motions; he would throw himself into all sorts of graceful attitudes, bite
gently, press himself against you, and give out a gentle cry. He never made
grimaces, but, on the contrary, his countenance was always calm, and
frequently serious. He looked a perfect angel of a Monkey in his beautiful
fur; his hair was of a brilliant golden green, the back and sides were rich
brown, variegated with black, the outer part of the limbs and tail were slate-
coloured grey, while the neck, chest, and underneath were pure shining
white. He had ears and hands of a flesh-colour, and there was a black band

stretched across the forehead, surmounted by a crescent-shaped stripe of
grey.
Probably its French education may have had something to do with its
politeness and gentleness, for one of these pretty creatures which was kept
in the Zoological Gardens was one of the most ill-conditioned savage beasts
ever seen—quite a diabolical Monkey. This Monkey does not appear to
have the air sac in the neck which is common to the Guenons, as well as to
the other Monkeys already noticed.

THE WHITE-NOSED MONKEY.[42]

WHITE-NOSED MONKEY.

The word “petaurista” is the Latin for “one that showeth tricks of
activity, from a machine suspended,” according to old dictionaries, so this
Monkey with a white nose has its abilities properly designated. Some call it
the Vaulting Monkey, but in the Zoological Gardens its wonderful agility is
shown by its scampering up the side, over the top, and down the opposite
side of its cage in a kind of continuous somersault. Coming down on all-
fours with a bang, it does the same thing over and over again to attract
attention, and it seems as if it were moving in the inside of a wheel. The dab

of white on the nose distinguishes it, and it comes from that paradise of
Monkeys the Guinea Coast and the adjoining districts.
The only one of the second group to be mentioned is

THE TALAPOIN.[43]

This is a rather rare animal, and comes
from the west coast of Africa, having been
sent to Europe from the Gaboon. It is a
pretty little creature (probably the smallest
of these Monkeys), and is extremely gentle
and intelligent. The skin is green, and the
lower part of the body and the under part
of the limbs are white. It has large ears, a
black nose, and it has a kind of broad
“brutus” on the forehead.
There are some very interesting points
about this little thing, which, in nearly all
its construction, is like the rest of the
HEAD AND SHOULDERS OF THE
TALAPOIN.
Cercopitheci, or Guenons, but it has a
large brain, a short muzzle, a thick, long
partition in its nose, and only three points,
or cusps, instead of four, on its last lower hind grinders.
So far as is known, there are no differences between the habits of this
little Monkey and the others from the west coast of Africa, and therefore its
intelligence and deficiencies are sufficiently incomprehensible; but they
exhibit a fact of great importance, of which a hint was given in the
conclusion of the description of the Mona Monkey. In the Talapoin, the last
lower grinder differs from that of all Monkeys by the absence of an
important part of its usual structure, and in the Mona the great air sac,
which is in communication with the windpipe in most other Monkeys, is
absent. This fact may be stated as follows:—That in animals closely
resembling others of their group or genus material deficiencies in
construction suddenly appear. Corresponding to these deficiencies are the
absence of all or a great part of tail in genera the majority of whose species

have a tail, and the inference to be drawn is that, notwithstanding all the
members or species of a genus are related by a common ancestry, the
descendants of a well-marked stock may exhibit peculiarities of structure
which are not produced by alterations in the habits or surroundings of the
animals.
Such peculiar structures often relate to a remote ancestor, and it is
remarkable that in the case of this Talapoin they give it a very faint
resemblance to the American Monkeys.
Some naturalists separate the Talapoin from the genus, and classify it in
one of its own under the title Myiopithecus.
The third group of the Guenons is represented by the well-known
Monkey called

THE GREEN MONKEY.[44]

It has its classical name from two words which mean beauty and hair
(κάλλος and θρίξ-τρίχος), and it must not be confounded with the
Callitricha of Buffon, which is the same as the Grivet Monkey whose figure
was drawn by the Egyptians.

GORILLA. (See pp. 6–30.)
(From the Living Specimen in the Zoological Gardens, London.)
❏
LARGER IMAGE

The Green Monkeys live in Senegal, and extend as far south as the
River Niger, for it was on the borders of that river that Adanson, a French
naturalist, noticed their collecting in great troops. The little Monkeys were
astonished at his appearance, and as they rushed off into the forest they

broke off, either purposely or by accident, little branches from the tops of
the trees, whose falling relieved the stillness of the woods. He indulged in
some very cruel sport at their expense, for although they had been so silent
and noiseless in their gambols, he shot one or two without the others being
frightened. But when the greater part were more or less wounded, they
began to get under cover from the shot, some to swing behind large
branches, some coming to the ground, and the majority jumping from the
top of one tree to another. Whilst this little scene (petite manège) was going
on, this scientific brute still continued to fire on them, and finally he killed
twenty-three in less than half an hour. This he did in the space of about one
hundred and thirty feet, and yet not one screamed, although they often
assembled together, knitting their brows and grinding their teeth, as if they
intended to attack him. Broderip, in noticing this, writes, “I wish they had,
with all my heart.”
They have in common with the other Guenons a fondness for particular
parts of their forests, and one band will prevent another from entering its
favourite haunts and this regard for companionship and locality is even seen
when they are in captivity. Restless, irritable, and irascible they are ever at
play, and fighting among themselves, but they will turn to expel a stranger.
It is said that this Monkey has obtained an American home, and that it
was introduced with slaves into the Island of St. Kitts. Many escaped into
the woods, and have increased considerably in number, so as often to
pillage the plantations.
We introduce a kind here whose elegance of colour is great, principally
to give a good notion of the general aspects of the Guenons, when not on
all-fours, and also of the furtive look in the eyes of tamed kinds.

THE RED-BELLIED MONKEY.[45]

When living at the Zoological Gardens, in the Regent’s Park, this pretty
Monkey, with a red chest and belly, and slim tail, was very timid, but it
liked to be petted by the keeper, being somewhat distrustful of its more
romping companions. It would take food out of his hand, and seemed
pleased, and generally played with, his fingers, without attempting to bite.
The canine teeth were very moderately grown.

This Monkey inhabits western Africa, and is at once known by the red
belly and chest, the white beard and whiskers, and the black band across the
forehead. It has, moreover, a yellow crown.

THE RED, OR PATAS MONKEY.[46]

The delicate red ground-colour of this Monkey readily distinguishes it
from its more favoured allies. One in the Zoological Gardens is wonderfully
human in the expression of its face and beautiful sad-looking large eyes. Its
pale lips, eyelids, and cheeks, and the broadish pale forehead, with a
slightly ridged nose, add to its appearance of suffering. It has a moustache,
a few hairs on its nose, and whiskers, which are very cleanly kept in the
proper whisker-line. The hair of the forehead forms a counter-curve, whose
peak is just in the centre. Altogether it is a very pretty animal.
Bruce, the African traveller, when in Western Africa, took that trouble
which is very rarely done by distinguished travellers in Africa, and
observed Monkeys in a state of nature—the Red Monkey in particular. It is
strange, considering the omnipresence of the Monkey element, that one
may look over volume after volume of African travels, and very rarely meet
with a note or word about them; but such is the case. So our obligation to
Bruce is great. He says they descended in troops from the tops of the trees
to the extremities of the branches, earnestly noticing, and apparently much
amused by, the boats, as they passed along the river. They then began to
take courage, and pelt the passengers with pieces of wood, this provoking a
most unequal combat. When fired upon, they uttered the most frightful
cries, and although many fell, the survivors seemed by no means willing to
relinquish the contest; on the contrary, they redoubled their efforts. Some
flung stones at their adversaries, while others collected something very
nasty as a missile; all, in short, displayed a determination of spirit which
must at all times render them formidable to opponents of weaker powers
than themselves.
The last group of the Guenons are often called the Mangabeys, from a
mistaken notion that they come from Madagascar. But there are no
Monkeys in that great island, whose forests are peopled by Lemurs instead.

RED-BELLIED MONKEY. (From the Proceedings of the Zoological Society.)

THE MANGABEY, OR WHITE-EYELID MONKEY.[47]

The general colour of this Monkey is a reddish-brown, which becomes
decidedly red on the top of the head. There is a white band between the
eyes, which is continued to each side of the back of the neck. A second kind
has grey slaty-brown tints, without the white spot.

MANGABEY.

One thing strikes the observer at once, and that is the very affected way
in which the Monkey sits, with its eyelids half closed; and as the upper ones
are dead-white, they look almost like doll’s eyelids, and as if they did not
belong to it.
They are extremely restless, and are
fond of placing themselves in curious
attitudes, and so full of antics are they that
it has been erroneously imagined that they
really have more joints and muscles than
the most agile of their allies. They are fond
of carrying their tails reversed, so as to be
on a line parallel with the top of the back,
and their common expression of disgust is
to show their teeth by raising the upper lip. FOOT AND HAND OF THE
MANGABEY.
It is always droll, frolicsome, and good-
natured. Sir William Jardine mentions a
female in Mr. Wombwell’s Menagerie that was most lively, and Broderip
says:—“She performed many of the attitudes of the most experienced
harlequins, and was remarkably cleanly and careful not to soil her person.

When feeding, she seldom put her head to the food or dish, but lifted and
conveyed it to her mouth. She was very fond of bread, milk, and vegetables,
and of carrots especially.” He gives a figure of her—no easy task, for she
was never at rest for one moment, and her celerity was increased when she
perceived she was noticed.
The Mangabeys are all African, and are peculiarised by having a fifth
cusp, or point, to the last crushing tooth on each side of the lower jaw, as in
Semnopithecus. Now, they have no other resemblance to Semnopithecus,
and all their structural peculiarities are those of the Guenons. They have,
however, the web between the fingers carried as far forward as the first
joint, and the hair comes close to the knuckles and the beginning of the
short thumb. In the foot the toe-thumb is large, and, as usual, widely
separate from the toes, the second and third of which are united by a web,
which reaches almost to the last joint near the tips, and the third, fourth, and
fifth are united by smaller webs, Evidently the peculiar crushing teeth of the
Mangabey are a relic of an ancestral character, and we must look in some
lower tribes for a corresponding arrangement, and in this we are assisted by
the nature of the face, for the muzzle is rather projecting. In fact, they
somewhat, resemble the Macaques, or Inui, which will be considered next.
It is extremely interesting to find in Africa, and in the same parts of it,
Monkeys living in the same forests, on the same kind of food, and exposed
to the same climate and dangers, differing so wonderfully in their colour
and disposition. The difference has been caused by something more than
adaptation to ends. Again, it is curious to note the different arrangements of
the dental structure in the group amongst animals eating the same food and
stowing it away in pouches.[48]

CHAPTER VII.
THE DOG-SHAPED MONKEYS (continued). THE MACAQUES.[49]

Their Description and Anatomy, and its reference to that of the Semnopitheci and Guenons
—THE COMMON MACAQUE—Its Character—Appropriateness of the Name—
Occasionally an Albino—THE ROUND-FACED MACAQUE—Found in China—Ideas of
the Chinese about them—THE TOQUE, OR BONNET MONKEY—THE BHUNDER—
Described by Cuvier—Their Thieving Propensities—Hindoo Tales of their Sagacity—
THE MOOR MONKEY—BELANGER’S MONKEY—THE PIG-TAILED MACAQUE—THE
MAGOT—One of the Commonest Monkeys—Described by Galen—Early Notices of
—Predatory Habits—Abundant at Gibraltar—Probably came over from Africa—
Similarity to the Baboons—THE WANDEROO—Account of one in the Zoological
Society’s Collection—Geographical Range of the Macaques

THE next group of Monkeys differs much from the lively dwellers
amongst the woods and trees, which have been described, and the kinds
contained in it are evidently suited for running quickly on all-fours, and
more on the ground than amongst the branches. They are not so much like
the Dog in shape as are the Baboons, which will be described next, but still
they are, as it were, between these and the Guenons in their habits and
construction. They have longer muzzles than the Guenons, but not so long
as the Baboons, and the nostrils open high up and obliquely. Their eyes are
overshadowed by a prominent brow-ridge, which gives an air of cunning
not seen in the playful Guenons, and also a look of fierceness and of
mistrust; and, in fact, the old ones look anything but amiable. Their limbs
are stout and compactly made, and they display great strength and width in
the shoulders. The hind limbs are, however, longer than the front ones, and
the hands and feet are well made, the latter being long and having a large
heel. But what strikes the observer, when he sees drawings or stuffed
specimens of the whole group before him, is the difference in the length of
the tail in different species. Some have long tails, others have very small
ones, and one in particular has not one at all. Those with tails used to be
placed in one genus, and those without them in another; and the first were
called Macaques (Macacus), the others being Inui[50] (Inuus). But the close
agreement of the other parts of the body, notwithstanding the length or
absence of the tail, coupled with the fact that it is not used in climbing or in

balancing, determined naturalists to rely but little upon that member in this
group, and to join those with tails and without tails in one genus, called
Macacus.
Those with long tails, the Macacus cynomolgus, for instance, cause the
group to resemble the Guenons; or, in other words, link and ally the two
genera, it being difficult in the case of this Monkey to say to which one it
should belong. On the other hand, the Barbary Ape, which managed to get
to Gibraltar and live there in some numbers, and which has but the very
stump of a tail, connects the whole group, or genus, with the Baboons
without tails. Then there is one with a fine head of hair, and a long snout
(Macacus Silenus), which lives in Malabar, and which has a longish tufted
tail; and it links some Baboons with long tails to the group now being
described.
The Macaques live in India, Tibet, North and South China, Japan, and
southwards, and in some of the great islands of the Archipelago, Formosa,
in Africa, in Barbary, but not south of the Atlas range, and in Europe, on the
Rock of Gibraltar.
They all have cheek-pouches and callous pads, or callosities, on their
seat, and thus resemble the Guenons; moreover, most of them have throat or
laryngeal sacs, which open into the membrane above the vocal organ and
below the base of the tongue (in the thyroid membrane).
On examining their jaws it will be noticed that there is the same number
of teeth as in the other Monkeys already described, and that the upper eye
or canine tooth on each side is very strong and long. Now, these teeth are
not for killing or stopping living prey, although their possessors do not
hesitate to snap up a good-sized Beetle, a small Lizard, or even a Frog, but
they make, with the first false grinder of the lower jaw, a capital nut-opener.
The canine, when the mouth is shut, fits just in front of this tooth, which is
usually called the first pre-molar, and which is pressed back and made to
slant in the jaw by the constant pressure and movements of the canine. The
back of the canine is sharp, and comes in contact with the equally sharp
edge of the slanted pre-molar below, so that when a nut comes between the
two it is cut and crushed at the same time. The canine does not thus fit into
a diastema, or vacant space, but is of great use to the animal. This
arrangement is interesting, because it produces a distortion of the front back

teeth of the lower jaw for a definite and useful purpose: it is noticed in some
of the Guenons, and is particularly seen in mouths of the great Baboons,
which will be noticed further on.
The other back teeth resemble somewhat those of the Guenons, but the
last one of the lower jaw has five cusps, or prominences, on it.
All these Monkeys going very readily on all-fours have several
interesting modifications of the structures observed in the climbing
Monkeys, but of course their general construction is the same. They have
not, however, the pouched stomachs of the Semnopithecus, and their nearest
resemblance is to the African Guenons.
Like all the Monkeys which are lower in the animal scale than the great
man-shaped Apes, the Macaques have narrow wrists, long linger bones, and
a short and backwardly-placed thumb. There are nine bones in the wrist.
The hip-and haunch-bones are long, and the first are hollowed out, and their
direction refers to the method of progression on all-fours, and their general
appearance is rather that noticed in the regular four-footed beast of prey,
and they differ much in breadth relatively to those of man.
The length of the tail depends upon the number of the tail-pieces, or
vertebra, and upon their size. In the Gibraltar Ape there are only three of
these caudal vertebræ, but in the Bhunder there are fifteen and sometimes
eighteen in the tail, which measures nine inches, whilst in the Pig-tailed
Inuus there are seventeen. It appears that some of the long-tailed kinds have
no more vertebræ than the others, but that the diminished length is due to
their shortening. The long and middle-sized tailed kinds have chevron-or Y-
shaped bones under the tail, and the nature of these has been explained
already.
Living upon a great variety of food, and using their jaws with rapidity,
these Monkeys are furnished with a curious modification of a muscle,
which exists in man and the higher Apes. There is in these a muscle on each
side of the throat, which draws the chin down, or, in other words, helps to
open the mouth. It is called the two-bellied, or digastricus muscle, as it has
two muscular masses—one attached to the lower jaw, and the other to the
lump of bone behind the ear—and they are united by a thin tendon. This
tendon is attached to the side of the bone at the base of the tongue, or os
hyoides, and it passes through a loop of a muscle which passes from the

ear-bone (styloid process) to the os hyoides. The muscle acts as follows:—
When the mouth is to be opened after swallowing, the base of the tongue-
bone is pulled down by a muscle which comes from the breast-bone to it,
and then the front belly, or muscle of the digastricus, pulls from the base of
the tongue against the lower jaw and drags it open. But when the muscle
relaxes, and the jaw is shut preparatory to swallowing, the digastricus
begins to assist in this operation. In swallowing, the base of the tongue is
drawn upwards towards the roof of the mouth, and the back and front
bellies of the muscle now under consideration drag on their fixed tendon,
and straighten, so as to assist in this.
In the Macaques, this tendon is replaced by muscular bands, and greater
vigour is given to the muscle, so that the jaw is pulled at more rapidly, and
the tongue is elevated with energy.
As there is a greater power given in drawing up the tongue in the first
stage of swallowing, there must be something extra to pull it down again in
the second stage, for in this the back of the throat, the gullet, and the back
of the tongue are all brought from above to a lower level. This is arranged
by a modification of a muscle, which in man and the Chimpanzee, for
instance, stretches from the top of the bladebone, across the lower part of
the neck, to the bone at the base of the tongue (the omo-hyoid muscle). It
has also two bellies in man, or, in other words, the muscular fibres are
attached to the bladebone and to the hyoid bone, and there is an
intermediate tendon; moreover, this passes through a pulley, so that the
obliquely-placed muscle in the lower part of the neck acts straight upon the
tongue, and pulls it down in a right line. In the Macaques, this muscle has
no central tendon, and the muscular fibres pass all the distance from the
bladebone to the os hyoides at the base of the tongue.

COMMON MACAQUE.

In addition to these modifications where muscle replaces tendon, there
are those of several other muscles which act on the tongue, the larynx, and
on the upper and lower parts of the windpipe, their conjoined action being
to approximate all these parts. These muscles, which are separate in man,
are united in one in the Macaques.
The head of these Monkeys, hanging as it does when they go on all-
fours, requires extra support, and one of the muscles of the back, which
from its square shape is called the rhomb-shaped muscle, is especially
attached to the occiput, and helps to hold the head up. Another assistant in
the movement on all-fours is a muscle which pulls the bladebone forwards
when the animal is walking. It springs from the outer processes of the upper
bones of the neck (transverse process of the upper cervical vertebræ), and is
attached to the spine of the bladebone. This muscle is seen in the great
beasts of prey also, and in the Semnopitheci and Guenons. A similar “wild-
beast” peculiarity exists in the arrangement of the muscles of the hand; the
muscle which extends the little finger and opens it is divided, and has

greater connections with the fourth finger than in man. The long muscle
which extends the thumb, and the short one which draws it from the fingers,
are not separate in the Macaques, but the muscle has two tendons, and thus
foreshadows the arrangement which in man and the higher Apes gives such
perfection of movement to the thumb.
The Macaques have their ears rather pointed at the tip, and not rounded,
and the general shape of their bodies is not lanky like that of the active
long-legged Guenons and Semnopitheci. They are less gracefully made, and
the dog-like appearance, so palpable in the Baboon, is recognised in their
fore parts and head. Moreover, the colours are not usually pretty and
variegated, as in many of the kinds of the genera already described, but are
dun and sad in tint. Their tail varies according to the species in length, and a
rough method of classification may be made which divides them into those
with long, those with moderate, and those with short and almost no tails.

TOQUE.

The large Common Macaque (M. cynomolgus), and the Round-faced, or
Formosan Monkeys (M. cyclopis), and the Bonnet Monkey, represent the
long-tailed kinds; the Bhunder (M. rhesus), has a tail of middle length; and
the short-tailed group about to be mentioned consists of the Moor, the Pig-
tailed, and the Belanger Monkey. The tail-less one includes the Magot.
Finally, the Silenus Ape, usually miscalled Wanderoo, is so baboonish that,
although it has a long tail, it cannot be placed with the Common Macaque
in the beginning of the chapter, but must come at the end, so as to lead to
the true Dog-headed Apes, or Baboons, which will be described further on.
If the remarks in page 106 about the fourth division of the Cercopitheci
are now read carefully, it will be understood how these Monkeys, the
Macaques and the Baboons, form a group of creatures which is only really
separable into kinds or species, but that the genera are very artificial.

THE COMMON MACAQUE.[51]

The so-called Common Macaque, or Macacus cynomolgus, represents
the long-tailed section of the genus, and grows to be a powerful animal
amongst the other small Monkeys, over a very wide extent of country. It
lives in Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, Batchian, in the islands from
Lombok to Timor, and in the Philippines. It is a quiet and tolerably amiable
Monkey when young, but with years, it becomes a wild, savage, and very
brutal creature. Even in menageries it is often nasty in its habits, and
savage. So bad a character has it, that when the proper name to give it came
under the criticism of Fred. Cuvier, he sought out those of all the wickedest
and naughtiest men in Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary, and finally
considering that Irus, who disturbed the domestic peace of the sublimely
virtuous, industrious, and persevering Penelope, was the worst of the worst,
he fixed his name to that of this Monkey. But Buffon had, not from his bad
qualities, or from any resemblance to the Monkey in disposition, his name
attached to it long before; so it was called Buffon’s Monkey, as well as the
Hare-lipped, although one fails to recognise this condition in its face. To
complicate matters, an English zoologist, who knew little of Penelope’s
feelings or trials, mistook the word Irus, and wrote it Iris! The word
Cynomolgus may be translated “a pilfering or a lewd dog,” so that it and
Irus are very appropriate.

The huge shoulders of the full-grown adult strike one, and its general
clumsiness also. There is a large body, and the limbs are short for it,
although the tail is long. The fur is rather short, and is of an olive-brown,
spotted with black on the head and body, but it is grey on the limbs, and
blackish on the tail. There is no “hare-lip” in this Monkey, but there is no
hollow going from the nose to the upper lip as in man, and only a raised
line.
This Monkey is sometimes found perfectly white, with red eyes, or as
an albino; its skin is then of a pinkish colour, and the long tail looks very
curious, as there is not much hair on it. A male and female of this kind are
very interesting in the Zoological Gardens; they dislike the glare of day, and
are very lively and full of fun and malice. The female has the whiskers and
all the beauty of hair, and the male is a quieter animal, but a great grimace-
maker. He tries to look fierce when the sun is on his face, and looks most
odd. He draws back his ears, so that they cling to the back of his head, and
wobbles his eyes about in a most laughable manner. The female does not
like to be disturbed in her nap after breakfast, and comes out to see what is
the matter. If anything noisy is going by, she scolds violently, and if she can
catch hold of her drinking-tin, she will bang it about in a very amusing
manner. Sitting in her wooden house, she bangs the outside with the tin, and
then dropping it, rushes out and fixes her teeth on the wooden branches in
the cage. The deficiency of colouring matter in the iris of the eye allows so
much light to enter that organ, that there is the same scowling or shading
eye look in them as there is in human albinos.
The second example of a long-tailed genus is

THE ROUND-FACED MACAQUE,[52] THE FORMOSAN MONKEY.

These are very interesting Monkeys, with a human-like expression,
which suffer considerably at the hands of the Chinese, for should one be
captured, its tail is immediately cut off, the Chinese having a fanciful idea
that the tail of the Monkey is a caricature of the Tartar pendant into which
they twist their long back hair. They therefore cut off the tail of every
Macaque that comes into their possession.

They live in Formosa about the declivities and caverns which overhang
the sea, miles away from any woods. It seems to be quite a rock-loving
animal, seeking the shelter of the caves during the greater part of the day,
and assembling in parties in the twilight and feeding on berries, the tender
shoots of plants and grasshoppers, &c. In the summer it collects in bands
during the night, and commits depredations among the fields of sugar-cane
and fruit-trees. They nurse their solitary young ones up in the hills, and
betray much uneasiness—no wonder—at the approach of man. They seem,
however, to possess abundance of self conceit.
The Chinese have some very curious notions about them, and about
some other Monkeys which are either identical or are found with them.
They say that in the Yaoukwang hills are animals whose exterior
appearance is like a Mehow with human face and Hogs’ bristles. During the
summer they dwell in caves. They are called Hwatso, their cry is like cut
water (noise of a mill), and when seen they are “ominous of a conscription”
(i.e., of being forced to work). The Yew are like the Mehow and of a deep
black colour; their tails are long like the others, but have no tufts. When
they scent the dew ascending to form rain, they then suspend themselves by
means of their tails to fill their nostrils with it, or else by both feet. The
Gaou are said to inhabit the Lunseen hills, to be like an Ape with long arms,
and to be good for killing. When their arms are cut through at the thick part,
they can be made into flutes rounder than reeds. They are of the Monkey
tribe, having long legs, and are good whistlers, and given to drag things
about. The Yew are like the common Monkey, with green body and dark
paws; they have black whiskers and black paws. They are naturally very
fond of their whiskers, and doat on their species, living and dying together;
on which account, if one can be got at, a hundred will be killed. Men shoot
them with poisoned arrows; the shot animal’s companions draw out the
arrow in order to wound themselves and die with one another.
These round-faced Monkeys have, of course, callosities on the buttocks,
and these at certain times become gorged with blood, so as to swell out and
become greatly distended, being horrible to look at.
They resemble the common Rhesus Monkey, about to be described, in
many points, and indeed the skulls present so many things in common that
no satisfactory distinction can be made; but the bones of the pelvis, which

are much curved, and the shorter limb-bones of the round-faced species, are
distinctive.
The fur of this Monkey is thick and woolly, and is very slate-coloured.
The tail is about a foot in length, is hairy, and has a black line along the top.
The head is round, the ears are small and feathered, and the face is flat. The
forehead is naked and the cheeks are dark-whiskered, and there is a strong
ruffle-like beard.

THE BONNET MONKEY.[53]

This is a very common Monkey in menageries and zoological gardens,
and is always an object of attention, as it is amusing, very active, full of
tricks and malice, and a great stower away of nuts in its cheek-pouches. It is
known amongst the other Macaques by its cap of long hair radiating from
the crown, on which it rests flat, but it is often parted down the middle. It
has a long tail, rather a long muzzle, and prominent ridges over the eyes,
and the forehead is flat. Its fur is olive-grey, and sometimes greenish or
brown in tint, whilst the under surface is ashy-white. It has large and often
flesh-coloured ears.
The young often have their head of hair parted down the middle, and, as
their face and forehead are pale and not hairy, they have a very human
appearance.
Very good-tempered when pleased, this Macaque enjoys a bit of
mischief, and if it can steal anything from a visitor it is intensely delighted.
But when food is offered and then not given, the Bonnet Monkey shows
that it considers itself wronged, and scolds and screams in a great rage. It
has much capacity for accepting and stowing away food, and there are often
fierce fights if one intrudes upon the store of another. Very fond of hugging
and nursing others, it is equally delighted in searching the bodies of its
companions for insect life; but, although thus amiable, it resents unkindness
very decidedly and at once.
Another common Macaque is called the Toque, but it only differs from
the Bonnet in the parting of its hair.

THE BHUNDER, OR RHESUS MONKEY.[54]

This is a Monkey with a medium-sized tail, which is well known to
those Europeans who have lived in out-of-the-way places in British India.
It is a strong-looking creature when full grown, and has powerful
shoulders and limbs; the tail is about one-third of the length of the body,
which often attains the length of from one foot-and a-half to two feet. The
prevailing colour of the hair is olive-green and brown on the back, and the
naked face is of a pale flesh-colour. There is no ruff of hair around the neck,
and the ears are very visible, and there is a singular looseness or folding of
the skin of the throat and belly. The callosities are often very red, and the
insides of the legs also.

BHUNDER AND BONNET MONKEY.

F. Cuvier observed the early days of one born in France, and noticed
that immediately after birth it clung fast to its mother’s stomach, holding on
with its fore hands stuck in her fur, and that it did not quit the breast, even
during its sleep, for fifteen days. In the first day of its existence it appeared
to distinguish things, and to look at them carefully, and the mother was
devoted to it, giving it the tenderest attention of a constant and patient
nurse. Not a movement or noise on its part escaped her, and her maternal
solicitude was quite astonishing. The weight of the little thing did not
interfere with her moving about, and all her exertions were managed with a
view of not incommoding her young charge. She never shook it, or struck it
accidentally against the edges and corners of her house. At the end of a

fortnight the little one began to detach itself, and from the beginning of its
moving by itself it showed a great amount of vigour, power, and ability to
run and jump, which human children of a year or two might well envy. It
held on to the wires of its cage and crawled up and down at will, but the
careful mother never took her eyes off it, and followed it wherever it went,
and even held out her hands to prevent it tumbling when it became too
venturesome. Indeed, she admonished the little one by a gentle touch that it
had been away long enough, and must come in. At other times it walked on
all-fours over the straw, and often let itself drop down from the top of its
cage on to the soft bottom, so as to accustom itself to fall on all-fours; then
it would jump up the net-work and lay hold and scramble with great
precision. After a while, the mother began to teach the young one not to be
so troublesome to her, and to manage without her, but still she took care of
it, following it if it was doing anything out of the way and in danger. With
strength the agility of the creature increased, and its jumps and bounds were
wonderful, and it never miscalculated its distance, or made a false step.
After six weeks a more substantial nourishment than milk was required, and
then a very curious spectacle was seen. This attentive mother would not let
the little one have a bit of all the nice things, but drove it away and scolded
it, although it was hungry. The old one took possession of the fruit and
bread which were for both, and boxed the little one’s ears if it came close
and hid up the food. She had hardly any more milk, and the young one was
in daily want of food, but the old one did not appear to act from cruelty or
gluttony, but wished to train up the youth, like the young Cyrus, to feats of
daring and of skill. As hunger pressed, the young one became bold, and
stole by art what he could not get otherwise. If he was very adroit, all the
better, and he was commended by being allowed to carry off his own. He
used to get to the further end of the cage, and turning his back on his mother
would begin to gormandise. But even the maternal solicitude was not
wanting, for she often used to go up to him and snatch a nice titbit out of his
jaws. Perhaps this was a mistaken idea, for after a while a larger quantity of
food was placed in the cage, and the little one had its quantity without any
stealing.

MOOR MACAQUE.

The Bhunders are sacred in some parts of India, and are left very much
to themselves; so they assemble in troops, and steal from among the natives
in a very troublesome manner.
As they are very bold, their habits in the wild state are often observable,
their slyness and thieving propensities being most amusing. They gather on
the roofs of the low houses in the bazaars, and look out for occasion to
steal. One was observed on a roof fronting a sweetmeat shop, and feigning
to be asleep; but every now and then he looked wistfully at the luscious
prizes below. It was, however, of no use, for sitting beside his stores was the
seller, smoking his pipe, and looking decidedly wide awake. This went on
for half an hour, when the Monkey got up, yawned, and stretched himself
artfully, as if he had only just awoke. He began to play with his tail, and
even made believe he was tying knots in it, as if he were wholly intent on it;
but ever and anon he gave a sharp, sly look over his shoulder at the
sweetmeats, but only to see the seller still there smoking away to his heart’s

content, and ruminating concerning prospective customers and profits. The
Monkey still had patience, and amused himself with his fleas, and had a
good and general scratch; and he was rewarded, for suddenly the
confectioner arose from his seat, took his pipe, and turned towards the back
door for a fresh supply of tobacco. Instantly the Bhunder was on all-fours,
and the sweetmeats were before him and behind their owner. In another
moment he had jumped off the roof, cleared the street, and was on the board
which was crowded with sugar-plums. He of course began to cram as many
as possible into his cheek-pouches. But, alas for the spoiler, there were
other pilferers there in the shape of hornets; his sudden descent frightened
them, and they flew off, but returned on the instant, and to take vengeance.
Before he could regain his roof they were all round him, stinging here and
stinging there with great zeal and passion. His efforts at getting away from
them were frantic, and he scrambled over the rotten roof, displacing the
tiles, which came down with a crash; and at last, when he jumped clear of
the enraged insects, he came on to a sharp, thorny bush, from which he
could not extricate himself. He had to spit all the nice things out of his
pouches, and, screaming with pain—for the thorns were more like fish-
hooks than anything else—he sat a picture of misery, barking hoarsely now
and then. The fall of the tiles brought out a crowd of natives, and they were
speedily joined by the confectioner, full of revenge. But the culprit was a
Monkey, and, therefore, an object of veneration; so a couple of Hindoos
managed to rescue him, and he limped off as well as he could to a
neighbouring grove.
The Hindoos tell many tales of the sagacity of this Monkey; and there is
one which may be taken as a specimen, although it has been filtered
through Mahomedan pages. A fakir had a Monkey which he had brought up
from birth. He loved it, and travelled here and there, taking much care of it.
In return the Monkey behaved like a watch-dog, and was most faithful and
watchful. It amused the fakir by its endless tricks and mimicry. One day, the
fakir placed his carpet in a square before the palace of some great shah who
had nothing to do, and who looked at the fakir and the Monkey with great
delight. The fakir had made a pie; there were some pieces of birds’ flesh in
it, and it was placed on some lighted charcoal to be cooked. The Monkey
sat watching, and the fakir thought he would like a stroll until dinner was
ready, knowing that his faithful follower would look after the cooking. But
the shah saw more than the fakir; for, after a while, the smell of the meat

came strongly into the Monkey’s nostrils, and he began to feel hungry. Soon
he was very hungry, and then he just lifted up the edge of the crust, and
could not refrain from taking a tiny bit—just a little leg. This was so nice
that he took a little more, and finally eat all. The crust was left on the grass,
and then the sinner suddenly remembered his master. The shah was in
ecstasies, wondering what would come next. After due consideration, the
Monkey remembered that he usually sat on a very beautiful flesh-coloured
“callosity,” and he had noticed that several Crows and other birds had been
hovering about whilst he consumed his master’s dinner. He instantly
feigned to be dead, and hiding his head, gave the birds the benefit of the
scarlet appearance. One came down instantly with a swoop; but the Monkey
was too quick, and the bird was seized and strangled in an instant. Rapidly
plucking off the feathers, the Monkey pulled it to pieces, and put it in the
pie, and sat looking happy, contented, and extremely virtuous. The shah was
struck with this wonderful display of instinct, and the story goes on to say
that he promoted the fakir to an important post under government.
There is a Macaque which, instead of having the quiet brown and olive
tints of the others, with short tails, is of a dark oily black colour. It is called

THE MOOR MONKEY.[55]

It lives in Borneo, and is about eighteen inches in length. It has a flat
nose, with nostrils opening well outwards, and the eyes are hazel, the pupils
being very large. The length of the bones of the tail is not enough to carry it
beyond the callosities, which are of a roseate hue.
When young the skull is short, and there is no great projection over the
eye; but with age the upper part of the face becomes very square, and the
eyebrow ridges grow. Now; this gloomy-looking Monkey offers some
points of interest, for there is another one, called the Booted Monkey
(Macacus ocreatus), which cannot be distinguished from it when both are
young. With age, however, the last-named one becomes oily black, has a
longer tail, and the hair on the head has a bushier appearance. But can these
distinctions be accepted as showing a difference in the species? Probably
not; and it will be for the student to consider that Monkeys may have races
and varieties which really pertain but to one species, and yet are separated
by the naturalist.

There are other short-tailed species of the Macaques, of which one,
called the Handsome Monkey (Macacus speciosus), has a red face. It is
from Japan, and is educated by the showmen there to do tricks like the
Rhesus Monkey of India.
Another kind is interesting, because it gives a hint how a tail may be
gradually lost from being in the way.

BELANGER’S MONKEY.[56]

This is found in Cochin-China, Singapore, Burmah, and up in the hills
of Upper Burmah, Cochin, and Assam.
Its tail is more than a stump, yet is not half a middle-sized one, as it
does not come lower than the haunch-bones. The Monkey is much troubled
with it. Sometimes it is stuck up erect, but usually it is curled inwards, as if
the animal were ashamed of it, and had done something wrong. When this
is the case, the end quarter of it is doubled up, and thus the space between
the haunch-bones is filled, as it were. The animal then sits on its tail and on
its callosities, which are on the haunch-bones, and the consequence is that
the surface of the tail, thus compressed, becomes hard and callous. Here,
writes Dr. Anderson, the Indian zoologist, is an instance of a Monkey sitting
on its tail; and the habit appears to be peculiar to the species. The tail is
very degenerated, so far as its bones are concerned, and the curvature of it
appears to be caused by the animal desiring to curve it out of the way of
pressure. Perhaps, according to Lord Monboddo, this is the first symptom
of the loss of tail. With regard to the other peculiarities of this species, it
may be mentioned that it has pretty eyes, and is exceedingly easily
domesticated.

THE PIG-TAILED MACAQUE.[57]—THE BRUH.

This is a short, thin-tailed kind, comes from Sumatra, Borneo, and the
Malay Peninsula, and is called by the natives the Bruh—climber of the
palms. It is said to be used by the natives to collect cocoa-nuts, and is
domesticated by them, being often found in their houses.

THE MAGOT.[58] THE BARBARY APE. THE TAIL-LESS APE.

This is a very celebrated kind, and it has made its mark in the history of
science and of the world. It was dissected by Galen; it took part in the great
siege of Gibraltar, and is one of the most popular of the companions of the
organ-grinder. Moreover, as will be noticed further on, it is an animal which
may be classified with the Cynocephali, or true Baboons, to be described in
the next chapter, without doing much violence to science.
It is called Magot by the French, and it is the Pithecus of that great old
physician, Galen, who, when he could not learn anatomy by dissecting the
human body, which was not allowed, investigated that of the Tail-less Ape.
Born at Pergamo, about the year A.D. 131, Galen studied literature and then
anatomy when young; and visiting Alexandria, was greatly delighted with
being permitted to examine a human skeleton there, and subsequently to
dissect a robber, who had remained without burial. Seeing that anatomy and
physiology were the very foundations of medical practice, and noticing the
resemblances of man and the Ape, he set to work and wrote largely on
anatomy, but made the Ape his model. He was far before his age, and,
therefore, abominable in the eyes of the antiquated practitioners; so his
career as a physician in Rome was short. Nevertheless, his voluminous
works lasted longer than his critics, and influenced the rise of medical
science and the comfort and lives of mankind for many centuries. His
anatomy was wrong, because it was that of the Ape and not of man; but,
nevertheless, so strongly were the medical anatomists—who never
dissected but only read—impressed with the correctness of his so-called
human anatomy, that when Vesalius did dissect men and describe them, he
was pooh-poohed by the faculty as of no authority whatever. Just as Oxford
opposed the learning of Greek, so the first physician of Henry IV. of France
decided against human anatomy and Vesalius; but Greek and Vesalius
triumphed after a while.
Nevertheless, humanity for many centuries was under a deep obligation
to the Magot, inasmuch as surgery, as applied to man, was founded upon
observations on the construction of the Ape.
Strabo knew that North Africa was peopled by the Tail-less Ape, or
Pithecus; and he asserts that Posidonius, on going from Cadiz to Italy by

sea, stopped in Lybia (the present Barbary), and saw large numbers of these
Apes in the forests, which came down close to the water side.

PIG-TAILED MACAQUE.

The Magot is about the size of a middle-sized Dog, and measures from
two to two and a half feet in length. The upper parts of the body and
outsides of the limbs are of a light yellowish-brown colour, which is deeper
on the head and round the cheeks; the under parts are whitish; and the face,
ears, and other naked and hairless parts are flesh-coloured. The bald face,
rather pale in tint, is long and wrinkled, and it is this which gives an old
look to them, even when they are young. It is a robust animal when full
grown, and has then deeply-set eyes, which are rather close together, and a
projecting brow. The erect posture can be maintained for a short time, but it
is not natural to it; on the contrary, it moves on all-fours quickly, jumps and
climbs with great agility, scampering over broken ground or getting into the
trees equally well. It squats on its haunches, and often sleeps with the head
hanging down over the chest. Always alert and full of mischief, they

assemble in troops, especially on the flanks of the Atlas range, place their
scouts on trees, like so many Crows, and despoil the fruit plantations and
gardens. In this they resemble the Baboons, whose marauding expeditions
will be noticed further on.
This is the Monkey which is tolerably common on the Rock of
Gibraltar; and they were there before the sea wore away the land and
formed the Strait. They are essentially Rock Apes, and like trees near rocks,
and, therefore, they are not found in desert tracts or in deep woods.
Formerly the Rock of Gibraltar was no doubt continuous with the range of
hills far over the sea to the south, and there the Magot plundered (or, rather,
took what Nature let him take; for man had not then come to disturb him)
the fruit of Kabylia, Algiers, and Morocco. People have invented many
methods by which the Magots could come from Barbary on to the Rock of
Gibraltar: some believe in a subterranean passage, which is said still to
enable the occasional visits of African relations to their European kindred;
and others, more practically inclined, believe that the Apes came over on
board ship by stealth. Certain it is that the strong current through the Straits
prevents anything from drifting from one side of them to the other. Some
years since, some caves were opened and carefully examined in the Rock of
Gibraltar, and bones were found of kinds of Hyænas, of Rhinoceros, and of
Elephants, all comparable with those still living on the African Continent.
Now, such animals could not at the present time live on the Rock, but they
might have done so when it was part of a country extending right away to
Africa. Their bones were washed into valleys amongst the hills, and then
they fell into deep fissures and became preserved; and this could only have
taken place when there was much water in the neighbourhood; and for there
to be much water, the whole aspect of the country would have to be
changed—to be extended far and wide where the sea now is.

MAGOT.

No Monkey bones were found; but this is to be explained by noticing
what occurs in India. There a dead Monkey is rarer than a dead Donkey in
England—so rare, indeed, that the natives believe that their fellow Monkeys
bury them; but the fact is there are plenty of beasts of prey ready to devour
them, sick or dead, and therefore Monkey bones are very seldom found.
It is probable, then, that the Magot, and many African and some
European animals, lived in the south of Spain when the Peninsula was
united to North Africa. It has lasted longer than its great fellow-beasts, and
still lingers there, but in greatly diminishing numbers.
What they live upon on the Rock is rather a mystery, for there are no
groves of fruit-trees or plantations to be robbed, but only roots and bulbs to
be dug up. Perhaps it is this spare diet which restricts their numbers and
causes them to be very watchful. It is notorious that they are rarely
approached, but sometimes they are trapped, or seduced into mischief,
which ends in captivity. All kinds of stories are told at Gibraltar, and by

most of those who have resided there, of the
acts and deeds of the Rock Monkeys. Once
upon a time, a strong party of these Apes,
headed by an old male, who had grown grey
in audacity and mischief, were always stealing
and ruining the belongings of a certain
regiment in garrison, and at last the annoyance
became so great that it was determined to
catch the ringleader, if possible. The men
caught him, and shaved his head and face, and
then they let him go. Away he scampered to
WRIST-BONES OF THE MAGOT.
his party, who had been watching for him at a
distance, eager, no doubt, to place himself at
their head again and lead them to vengeance.
He was received with a volley of sticks and stones by his own troops, who
treated him so roughly that he had to fly for his life. In this deplorable and
degraded state, he was fain to sneak back to his old enemies, the ——th
regiment, and presented himself at their quarters, so woe-begone and with
such a rueful visage, “all shaven and shorn,” that there was no resisting the
appeal. Broderip says: “He was admitted, and remained with his new allies,
whom he served with fidelity, upon the principle that secures the faith of
other allies—because he couldn’t help it.” It is said in one of the stories of
the great siege that the Monkeys saved Gibraltar as the Geese saved Rome,
for the Spaniards attempted to surprise the place a few weeks before the
regular siege commenced; but, fortunately for the British, the attacking
party had to pass where a number of these Magots had collected. Both
parties were startled at the noise, but the British were put on their guard,
and the old fort was thoroughly ready for the enemy. General Elliot,
afterwards Lord Heathfield, never suffered the Apes to be molested or
taken; but one had been made prisoner previously to the time of his being
made Governor of Gibraltar, and was kept chained in his yard. Another
Monkey, who had apparently fallen from a rock, had been picked up by one
of the General’s aides-de-camp and conducted to the same place. Nothing
could be more striking than the meeting of the pair. It was evidently the
recognition of two old friends or relatives. After contemplating each other
for a few seconds, they rushed into each other’s arms, then pushed each

other a little back, as if to make sure of the recognition, and, after a second
mutual examination, again clasped each other to their breasts.
The Magots, like all other Monkeys, are playful, affectionate, and
gentle, when young, to those whom they know, but they become cross and
vicious with age, and are generally greatly brutalised by their masters—in
fact, brought to the same level.
The absence of a tail makes the Magot look very baboonish, and this
appearance is not lost when the animal is dissected, and the skull is
examined. This is much less animal-looking than that of any one of the
Baboons, for it has not so much face, and the front of it is not so disfigured
with ridges and swellings. But the forehead is “villainous low,” and there
are well-marked ridges over the orbits, the skull not rising behind them;
and, as a matter of course, the brain case is flat, the brain itself being low in
height. The palate is narrow and long, the face is flat, and the chin recedes.
There is a capital set of teeth, and the last grinders of the lower jaw (third
molars) have their fifth cusp, or tubercle, subdivided by two side-slits. In
this, and in the tail, which is excessively rudimentary, and only has three
bones, or vertebræ, the Magot departs from the usual form of the Macaques
as a genus. The sutures of the face and skull—that is to say, the joinings
between the bones—are soon obliterated in this animal; and it appears to
have the nose (nasal) bones joined in one at an early age, thus resembling
the Baboon and the carnivorous animals.
So many tricks are taught these clever Magots, and with such ease, that
one would expect to find a fairly-developed brain; but an examination of
one shows that it is hollowed beneath and narrow in front, whilst it is broad
behind, and extending well back, and covering the cerebellum.
Their special muscular structures resemble those of the other Inui, and
even their stump of a tail has the muscles which are common to those of all
Monkeys, but which in this instance are useless.
It will be noticed in the engraving of the wrist-bones that one projects
behind. This is the pea-shaped, or pisiform bone. It is small and at the side
of the wrist in man, but here it acts like it front heel bone. The length of the
three middle long bones of the palm, or metacarpals, is nearly equal; and
this is an interesting point, as it prevents the third finger from being so
much the longest, and gives the hand more or less a foot-like appearance.