An attempt has been made, chiefly by the unlearned, to regard
Paulina as the image of Mafuca. There is, however, a considerable
physiognomical difference between the two animals. For me and many
other naturalists Mafuca remains up to this time an enigma, which is
slurred over by others with the help of a few phrases. Paulina, on
the other hand, and animals of the same character, display much to
remind us of the illustration given by Gratiolet and Alix of their
_Troglodytes Aubryi_, although the drawing was taken from a specimen
dissected by the French naturalists which had lost its hair through
maceration in an impure preserving fluid. The growth or the lack of
hair involves considerable external differences in specimens of these
animals, yet I repeat my assertion that there is a resemblance between
Paulina and her fellows, and Aubry’s chimpanzee.
The certain special characters presented by chimpanzee forms here
mentioned (Paulina and _Troglodytes Aubryi_) remind us of the bam
found on the Niam-Niam in Central Africa, which was probably first
discovered by A. de Malzac, and was afterwards more exactly described
by Schweinfurth.
In _Cassell’s Natural History_ (i. 39) the Nschiego-Mbouvé
(_Troglodytes Tschégo Duvernoy_; _Troglodytes calvus Du Chaillu et
Wyman_), is described and drawn by Duncan, but only in profile, from
a stuffed specimen. In this there is much to remind us of the profile
of Mafuca, including the very shrivelled nose. An illustration is
given in the same work of the anthropoid Koolo-Kamba, here given as
a distinct species, and identified in the systematic catalogue as
_Troglodytes Koolo-Kamba_, together with _Troglodytes Aubryi_; here we
see a full-grown chimpanzee of the ordinary kind, to which a front view
of the head of the Aubry chimpanzee, as it was published by Gratiolet
and Alix, has been affixed. Honest research should stand aloof from
such confusion. By Brehm, the Mafuca was given as the representative
of the species already established by Duvernoy, _Troglodytes Tschégo_
or _Anthropopithecus_, and this assertion is accepted by Martin.[102]
The latter remarks that this ape cannot be classified either with the
chimpanzee or the gorilla, and gives some reasons for his assertions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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