According to Pechuël-Lösche, the gorilla is rare on the Loango coast. In this district it inhabits the mountainous forests or the strip of country in their immediate vicinity. Some years ago these apes were found on the Luemme and Kuilu, even down to the mouths of these rivers, and also in the ravines of the plateau of Buala; but they now only come to the coast at Banya, where the same authority believes that he once heard gorillas. Neither Pechuël-Lösche, Falkenstein, nor Güssfeldt have ever seen the species in its wild state.[106] The specimen brought to Berlin by these travellers in 1876 was obtained by Falkenstein in October, 1875, at Ponta-Negra on the Loango coast, where it was presented to him by the Portuguese trader Laurentino Antonio dos Santos. This animal, which was then extremely young, had been brought from the Kuilu district by a negro, who had shot its mother.[107] In earlier accounts given by Owen, the district most frequented by gorillas was in the region of the Gaboon, which presents a pleasant variety of hill and dale. Here the high ground is clothed with fine, tall trees, while the valleys are rich in grass, with a scattered growth of underwood. There are a number of trees and shrubs, bearing fruits which the natives find inedible, but which are greedily devoured by gorillas. They show a special preference for the following fruits:--First, those of the oil palm (_Elaeis guineenis_), of which they also devour the developed, folded leaves, called the palm-cabbage; second, the grey plum tree (_Parinarium excelsum_), which bears a mealy and insipid stone-fruit; third, the melon tree (_Carica Papaya_); fourth, the pisang (_Musa paradisiaca_, _Musa sapientum_); fifth, two sorts of scitamines (_Amomum granum paradisi s. Afzelii_, _Amomum malaguetta_), the last of which, according to Lindley, produces the malaguetta pepper; sixth, _Amomum grandiflorum_; seventh, a tree bearing a walnut-like fruit, of which the gorilla cracks the shell with a stone (this is probably one of the _Sterculiaceæ_, like the Kola-nut); eighth, another tree with which we are not yet botanically acquainted, bearing a cherry-like fruit. Du Chaillu asserts that these animals are also very fond of sugar-cane and the wild pine-apple. Although they live in places far from human habitations, yet they rob the cane-plantations and the rice-fields of the negroes in the harvest-time, and this is a fact confirmed by Koppenfels. Savage reports that gorillas also devour the bodies of animals killed in hunting, and even human bodies, and this does not sound improbable. Like most species of apes, the gorilla preys upon the smaller mammals, upon birds and their eggs, and upon reptiles. The gorillas which have been kept in confinement at Berlin have been quite omnivorous, and have displayed a special taste for animal food.