Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/768

This page has been validated.
748
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of its parts, yet those distinctions are not so characteristic as those between the young and aged male gorillas. The skull of the younger animal, which is altogether devoid of the prominent bony crest and ridges, is shaped almost like a truncated cone in the region of the crown; in some individuals of only a few years old the bony development of the orbits has already begun, starting from the principal part of the frontal bone, and covered with pads of wrinkled skin. The short and depressed bridge of the nose becomes longer and higher, the cartilaginous end of the nose becomes larger, and the prognathism of the face increases with each successive stage of growth. The strength of the trunk and limbs is early developed. The sexual characteristics are gradually and plainly developed; but the male gorilla far exceeds the chimpanzee in demoniacal ferocity.

The adult female is smaller, and has a smaller head, with an oval crown to the skull. The orbits are not so strongly developed as in the aged male, the nasal parts are less prominent, and the teeth are not nearly so strong. The body of an animal of this sex is rounder in all its parts; and the belly, with its wider pelvis, is more tun-shaped than in the aged male. Neither do the limbs display the same angular formation of muscles.[1] The hands and feet of the female are also smaller and slenderer. In a young female the characteristics here describep are presented in the mitigated form which corresponds with its youthful condition. But the female sometimes becomes a very strong and even violent creature. This was often proved in the Hamburg Zoölogical Garden, where a female specimen, in splendid condition, survived for several years under the faithful care of old Siegel.[2]

The skin of the chimpanzee is of a peculiar light, yet muddy flesh color, which sometimes verges upon brown. Spots, varying in size and depth of color, sometimes isolated, sometimes in groups, and of a blackish-brown, sooty, or bluish-black tint, are found on different parts of the body of many individuals, especially on the face, neck, breast, belly, arms and hands, thighs and shanks; more rarely on the back. The face, which is soon after birth of a flesh color, merging into a yellowish-brown, assumes a darker shade with the gradual development of the body. The hairy coat is sleek, or only in rare cases slightly curled, and the coarser and bristly hair is generally stiff and elastic. The parting on the forehead is often so regular that it might have been arranged by the hairdresser's art (see Fig. 6). Close behind that part of the head at which the projecting supraorbital ridges of the gorilla generally meet, there is in the chimpanzee an altogether bald place, or only a few scattered hairs. Round the face the growth

  1. Compare Hartmann, "Der Gorilla," Fig. 8. This is undoubtedly one of the most successful illustrations of the chimpanzee, its habits, expression, and disposition.
  2. Compare Hartmann, "Der Gorilla," Fig. 27, representing the Hamburg animal in middle age. Fig. 6 gives the wild Paulina of the German Loango expedition. The inscription, by an error of the press, states that it is a male, not a female chimpanzee.