Gorilla

the largest of the man-like apes. It is closely related to the chimpanzee, but is larger and stronger. It more nearly approaches the carriage of a man, to whom in many ways it has an alarming resemblance. It is tailless, and walks erect without difficulty. It spends part of the time on the ground, but is best adapted to climbing in trees. The skin is black; the hair is gray. A large specimen attains a height of five and one-half or six feet. The largest weighs 500 pounds. The gorilla is at home in the forests of equatorial Africa, about 200 miles from the western coast. According to newspaper accounts a giant gorilla was killed in the Congo Valley in 1905. It stood seven and one-half feet high and weighed 800 pounds. The gorilla lives chiefly on fruits. Its powerful teeth are used to crack nuts that would require a blow from a heavy hammer. It has a terrific voice and is possessed of extraordinary strength but is an inoffensive animal when let alone. Its spare time is spent in a hammock constructed of wild vines in the branches of a tree from twenty to fifty feet above the ground. It allows no neighbor in the same tree. The best account of the gorilla may be found in the Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa of Du Chaillu, by whom, indeed, a skeleton was brought to Europe in 1859. In body, the gorilla is more like man than is any other ape. In point of intelligence and disposition, it is inferior to the chimpanzee. It does not thrive in captivity. There are only three or four specimens outside of Africa,--probably none in the United States. It is so used to the torrid, steaming climate of the Congo Valley that it dies on shipboard. See Chimpanzee; Orang-Utan; Monkey