The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1884-02-14
The Gorilla at Home.

1t is said by the natives that the 90
riila makes a sleeping place like a
hammock, by connecting the branches
of a sheltered and thickly leaved part
of 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 ham
mock-like abode may be seen at differ
ent nights 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 men but are most
commonly seen in the months of Sep
tember, October and November, after
the negroes have gathered in their out
lying crops and have returned from
the 'bush" to their valleys. So Oh
served, they are usually in pairs, or if
more, the addition consists OF a few
young ones of different ages and appar-
emily of one family. The gorilla is not
gregarious. The parents may be seen
sitting on branch resting their backs
against the tree trunk munching fruit,
while the young gorillas are at play,
leaping and swinging from branch to
branch with boots or harsh cries of
boisterous mirth. This rural felicity,
however, has its Objectionable sides,
for occasionally, if not invariably, the
old male, il ne be seen in quest of food
is usually armed with a short stick
which the negroes aver to be the weap-
on with which he attacks his chief en-
emy, the elephant. Not that the ele-
phant directly or Intentionally Injuries
the gorilla, but, deriving its subsistence
from the same source, the ape regards
the great proboscidian as hostile in
truder. When, therefore, he sees the
elephant pulling down and wrenching
OFT the branches of favorite tree, the
gorilla, stealing along the bough,
strikes the sensitive proboscis of the ell
ephant violent blow with 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 awk-
ward gait; when he is without a club he
has been seen 10 walk as man, with
his hands clasped behind his head, in
stinctively balancing his forward posi-
ton. If the gorilla be surprised and
approached, whatever the ground may
be, he betakes himself on all fours,
dropping his stick, and makes way very
rapidly with kind of sidelong gallop,
resting on the front knuckles, to the
nearest tree. There he meets his pur-
suer, especially if his family is near
and requiring his defense. No negro
willingly approaches the tree in which
the male gorilla keeps guard, even with
gun. The experienced negro does
not make the attack, but reserves his
fire in self defense. The enmity of the
gorilla to the whole negro race, male
and female, is uniformly attested. Thus
when the young men of the Gaboon
tribe make excursions into the forests
in search OF ivory, the enemy they most
dread to meet is the gorilla. If they
have come unawares too close to him
with mis- family, he does not, like the
lion, sulkily retreat, but comes rapidly
to the attack. swinging down to the
lower branches, and clutching the near
est foe. The hideous aspect of the an
imal, with his green eyes flashing with
rage, is heightened by the skin over the
orbits and the eyebrows being drawn
rapidly backwards and forwards, with
the hair erected, producing horrible
and fiendish scowl. If fred at and not
mortally hit, the gorilla closes at once
upon his assailant and infiicts danger
Gus if not deadly wounds with his sharp
and powerful tusks. The commander
of British trader once saw negro at
the Gaboon frightfully mutilated from
the bite of a gorilla, from which he had
recovered. Another negro exhibited
to the same voyager gun barrel, bent
and partly flattened by a wounded GO
rilla in his death struggle