Considering the bulk of the body of a Gorilla, and the nature of the movements of climbing, it is to be expected that those muscles and bones which are connected, as just stated, with the blade-bone, should be large and strong. This is remarkably the case. On examining the back of a Gorilla one is struck with the great projection of the back-bones in the neck. In man each back-bone or vertebra has a projection or spine which sticks out backwards more or less. These are small in the region of the neck, but in the Gorilla these spines are very long there, and give a peculiar hump-necked appearance. Their size, however, is in exact relation with the size and strength of the muscles attached to them, and some of these go to the blade-bone to assist in the act of climbing. It is this hump-necked appearance and the round-backed look produced by the great size of the blade-bones which make a Gorilla so ugly about the chest and head, but beauty is of much less use in an African forest than good stout bones and active muscles. The hind part of the neck does not form a graceful curve as in a well-made man, but a projection which gradually slopes into the line of the back. Moreover, the shoulders of the Gorilla do not slope from the neck--on the contrary, their direction is that which renders the hand-over-hand movement of climbing the readiest of commencement. They are “high,” as the term is, the head and neck being as it were sunken between them, so that the chin, instead of being on a much higher level than the top of the breast-bone, is naturally lower than it. The front of the neck is thus hidden by the huge lower jaw. Gorillas have collar-bones which are in the same position as those in man, but they are straighter, stouter, and stronger: they are not placed almost horizontally between the front of the blade-bone and the breast-bone, as in us, but as the shoulders are “high” they slant downwards to the breast-bone. By placing the hand on the upper part of the opposite side of the chest the collar-bone may be felt with the tips of the fingers like a ridge, and it is one which many know to their cost is very readily broken by a fall on the end of the shoulders. The bone is something like the letter _f_ in outline, without the cross-bar, and it is fixed at both ends: so when a force acts on one end in the direction of the length of the bone it tends to bend, and often cracks and breaks across. Now a fractured collar-bone would be a serious thing to a Gorilla; he could no longer lift up his arm, and he would be in constant peril and difficulty; hence, Nature has given him not only a very strong and straight bone, but has by the “high” shoulder posture rendered a fall on the top of it almost impossible. A fall would probably injure the upper part of the arm, which is well protected by the thick cushion of muscle, flesh, and hairy skin which covers the bone.