Owen has published instructive anatomical treatises on the gorilla
and the chimpanzee, in addition to those already cited. This English
professor had the opportunity of dissecting a young male gorilla,
imperfectly preserved in spirits of wine (28). The travellers Burton
(29), de Compiègne (30), Savongnan de Brazza (31), Lenz (32), the
members of the German-African Loango Expedition (33), and Von
Koppenfels (34) have also contributed some information respecting the
gorilla in a wild state. Other works on the zoology and anatomy of
this animal have been published by Duvernoy, already cited, Dahlbom
(35), Haeckel (36), Flower (37), Issel (38), Giglioli (39), Chapman
(40), Mivart (41), Macalister (41A), Von Aeby (42), Lucae (43), Ecker
(44), Bolau (45), Pansch (46), Lenz (47), A. B. Meyer (48), R. Meyer
(49), Bischoff (50), Ehlers (51), Virchow (52), Von Bär (53), by the
author of this work (54), etc. Duvernoy, Chapman, Bischoff, Bolau,
Ehlers, and I have, like Owen, been able to dissect perfect specimens
of the gorilla. Two of the specimens which came into my hands were
unquestionably in the best condition, since I obtained them immediately
after their deaths in Berlin. A larger specimen of a female, 1000 mm.
tall, was in worse preservation, yet still quite available for the
purposes of study.
The list of anatomical treatises on the gorilla is not yet exhausted.
Valuable information may be found in the anthropological works by C.
Vogt (55), in the writings of Pruner-Bey (56), and Magitot (57), in
Darwin’s works (58), in _Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères_, by Gervais
(59), in Huxley’s _Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals_ (60), in Flower’s
_Osteology of the Mammalia_ (61), in Giebel’s _Odontographie_ (62), and
in many other handbooks and treatises on natural history, which want of
room forbids me to mention.
In 1860, so far as I am aware, the first living gorilla reached
England. It survived its arrival seven months, and a good illustration
of this creature, accompanied by a brief description, has been recently
published in the _Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London_
(63). In 1876, towards the end of June, Dr. Falckenstein brought the
second living gorilla from Loango to Berlin. It had been kept in
confinement in that country at the German station Chinchoxo since 1874,
and it died on November 13, 1877, at the Berlin Aquarium. Dr. Hermes
obtained a third specimen in September, 1881, which died soon after
its arrival in Berlin. In 1883 a fourth still survived in the Berlin
Aquarium.
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