The Living Animals of the World
A Popular Natural History (Complete)
9781465634900
208 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Of all the great apes the Chimpanzee most closely approaches man in bodily structure and appearance, although in height it is less near the human standard than the gorilla, 5 feet being probably that of an adult male. Several races of this ape are known, among them the True Chimpanzee and the Bald Chimpanzee. The varieties also include the Kulo-kamba, described by Du Chaillu, and the Soko, discovered by Livingstone, who confounded it with the gorilla. But the variations in neither of these are sufficiently important to justify their being ranked as species. The first authentic mention of the chimpanzee is found in "The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell." an English sailor taken prisoner by the Portuguese in 1590, who lived eighteen years near Angola. He speaks of two apes, the Pongo and the Enjocko, of which the former is the gorilla, the latter the chimpanzee. The animal was first seen in Europe in 1641, and described scientifically fifty-eight years later, but we are indebted to Dr. Savage, a missionary, for our first account of its habits, in 1847. The chimpanzee, like the gorilla, is found only in Africa. The range includes West and Central Equatorial Africa, from the Gambia in the north to near Angola in the south, while it occurs in the Niam-Niam country to the north-west of the great lakes, and has been discovered recently in Uganda. The new Uganda Railway, which will open out the great lakes to the east, will bring English travellers well within reach of the nearest haunt of these great apes. It is on the likeness and difference of their form and shape to those of man that the attention of the world has been mainly fixed. The chimpanzee is a heavily built animal, with chest and arms of great power. The male is slightly taller than the female. The crown is depressed, the chin receding, the ridges which overhang the eye-sockets more prominent than in man, less so than in the gorilla. The nose has a short bridge, and a flat extremity. The ear is large, and less human than that of the gorilla. The hands and feet are comparatively long; the digits are, except the thumb and great toe, joined by a web. The arms are short for an ape, reaching only to the knees. The teeth are similar to those of man, and the canines of only moderate size. The chimpanzee has thirteen pairs of ribs, and, like man, has a suggestion at the end of the vertebræ of a rudimentary tail. It walks on all-fours, with the backs of its closed fingers on the ground, and can only stand upright by clasping its hands above its head. The skin is of a reddish or brown flesh-colour, the hair black, with white patches on the lower part of the face. The bald chimpanzee has the top front, and sides of the face bare, exceedingly large ears, thick lips, and black or brown hands and feet. The chimpanzee's natural home is the thick forest, where tropical vegetation ensures almost total gloom. But near Loango it frequents the mountains near the coast. It is a fruit-feeding animal, said to do much damage to plantations, but the bald race, at all events in captivity, takes readily to flesh, and the famous "Sally" which lived in the Zoo for over six years used to kill and eat pigeons, and caught and killed rats. The male chimpanzee builds a nest in a tree for his family, and sleeps under its shelter; when food becomes scarce in the vicinity, a move is made, and a new nest built. This ape lives either in separate families or communities not exceeding ten in number, and is monogamous.
