relation to its habits of life, it seems curious that a creature living in dense forests, and belonging to a climbing family, should have become so large as to impede its powers in this respect. Now the male gorilla, standing, sometimes, six feet high, and being much huger and bulkier than the largest man of that height, is greatly superior in size to the female, whose stature does not often exceed four and a half feet; for which reason she appears to be, and probably is, more fitted for nimbleness and activity, amongst the branches of trees, than her huge and heavy-bodied mate. But what has led to this great disparity of size between the male and female gorilla—a disparity which does not exist to anything like the same extent in the other man-like apes? Both are nourished by the same food; both must lead—or, if they do not now, must at any rate once have led—the very same life; therefore, as it would seem, there must be some special reason for their size and strength differing so greatly. It does not seem to be quite certain whether polygamy is, or is not, the custom amongst gorillas, but there can be little doubt that the rival males often fight together, for the possession of the females. The natives showed Du Chaillu some skulls of these great apes, that had the canine teeth of the upper jaw—which in the male gorilla are almost as large as a lion’s—broken off, and this, they said, had been done in some tremendous conflict of this sort, in which their owners had been engaged. Now if the male gorillas, besides being accustomed to fight for the females, are also polygamous, this may be a reason why they have become so much larger than the latter, for the largest and strongest amongst them would always have won, and so, by collecting together a more numerous harem, would have left a greater number of offspring to inherit their size and ferocity. The females, however, not fighting, would not have grown larger in the same way, for though, in nature, the qualities of one sex are often transmitted to the other, this is by no means always the case. Generally, indeed, if not always, where there is polygamy, the sexes differ much both in size and appearance.