But, though the orangutan is both strong and cunning, he is not nearly so human as the intelligent

Footnote 158. Malay: Orang man, utan forest.

and docile Chimpanzee, which shares with the fierce Gorilla the dense forests of palms, amomas, and gigantic tropical trees of Africa, where the grass and brush grow fifteen feet or more high, and the native man scarcely dares to venture for fear of the man-like apes. In these endless African forests there is quite a population of these wild creatures; bald-headed apes which build bowers in the trees; the Soko, a kind of gorilla, which loves to steal the native children, and always defends himself by biting off the fingers or paws of his enemy; the true chimpanzee, so human in its affection and its fun when it is caught and tamed; and the fierce gorilla, between five and six feet high, which rules as master in Western Africa near the equator.

Though each of these tailless apes has its own advantages, yet the gorilla is, on the whole, most advanced and nearest to man in structure. But his legs are still too short and thick, and his arms long, reaching to his knee; and the large projections on the back of his neck bones prevent him throwing his head well back, so that he stoops like a hunchback, while his feet are twisted so that he treads on the outside and not on the sole. His eye-teeth are huge, his eyes deeply sunken, his jaws heavy and strong, but his brain is not one-half the size of that of the lowest races of men, and though it has foldings very like those of the human brain, these are larger and less complex. When he walks it is not upright but on all fours, resting the knuckles of his hand on the ground; but when he is in his natural home—the trees—then his long strong arms and broad naked palmed hands grasp the boughs with immense power, and pull his heavy body upwards as he climbs hand over hand, his twisted toe-thumbed feet clutching the branches below far better than a straight foot could do.

Fig. 66.

The Gorilla at home.

And so he lives with his wife and family in the thick solitary parts of the West African forests, feeding only on fruits and leaves, so that his stomach becomes large and heavy with the amount of food necessary to nourish him. He is more sociable than the orangutan, for several will travel together, but he asks for no shelter beyond the trees and the nest of

leaves, which is his home and the cradle of his young ones, nor does he seem to attack other animals except in self-defence, and then his gigantic strength and his formidable teeth are his chief weapons, and woe betide the creature that comes within his grasp.

It is strange to picture to ourselves these huge apes, living in the depths of lonely forests and looking like human savages to those who can catch a glimpse of them, so that the ancient Carthaginians landing on the shores took them for “wild men” and “hairy women.” We know very little of their daily life, for they are seldom seen except by those who hunt them, and who have but little chance of watching their habits. But all that we do know teaches us that in their rough way they have developed into strangely man-like though savage creatures, while at the same time they are so brutal and so limited in their intelligence that we cannot but look upon them as degenerate animals, equal neither in beauty, strength, discernment, nor in any of the nobler qualities, to the faithful dog, the courageous lion, or the half-reasoning elephant.

--- TROPICAL EUROPE OF LONG AGO

CHAPTER X. THE LARGE MILK-GIVERS WHICH HAVE CONQUERED THE WORLD BY STRENGTH AND INTELLIGENCE.

If we now glance back in imagination over the almost endless variety of creatures which we have met with since we started with the fish, we must acknowledge that even if there were no other kinds than those we have already mentioned, the world

would be very full of different living beings, and that to succeed in the struggle for life in the midst of such a multitude, new forms must be endowed with great strength or armed with specially effective weapons.

Such animals, however, we know were already in the field, for we saw at the beginning of the last chapter that, together with the small rodents, insect-eaters, and lemurs, there were two groups of much larger animals, first the Herbivora or grass-feeders, including the hoofed animals (Ungulata) and the elephants; and secondly, their great enemies the Carnivora or flesh-feeders.

Now these two groups, on account of their size, strength, and agility, have spread very widely over the earth, especially the grass-feeders, for there is no part of the world which has not some vegetable-feeding animal in it, if only a few green shoots grow there. It is true the Rodents take some part of this green food, but then they are small and insignificant compared to the large Rhinoceroses, Elephants, Hippopotamuses, Oxen, Antelopes, Goats, Pigs and Sheep, which roam over wide spaces, and are even less restricted than the flesh-eating animals, for they live in the open air or the thick jungle, never in caves and holes, and their young ones are born wherever they may happen to be, and in a few hours run by their mother’s side, so that young and old wander together wherever food and shelter is to be found.

And so we shall see that these vegetable-feeders have filled every spot where they could possibly find a footing. In the regions of snow and ice the reindeer in Europe, and the elk and musk-sheep in America, rake the snow to uncover their scanty food, while the burning deserts of North Africa and East Asia have bred their camels and wild asses, and those of South Africa their quaggas. On the prairies of America the bison, and on the plains of Asia the wild cattle, feed in herds of thousands, while the zebra courses over the African hills. If we look to the tops of mountains, to dangerous crags where the merest tufts of grass are to be found, there we meet with the goats and sheep in India and Asia, the chamois and ibex in Europe, the big-horn sheep in the Rocky Mountains of America; or if we turn to the dense forests and tropical jungles, there we find the giraffes in Africa, the elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, antelopes, and wild boars in Africa and India, some feeding on the branches of the trees, some grazing on the grasses and lower brushwood, and some digging up roots and underground food. Only the rivers remain, and here too, in Africa, the hippopotamus has taken possession, feeding on the water plants and wallowing on the muddy banks.

In this way every available spot is used by one herbivorous animal or another, and if we could only trace out their pedigree we should be surprised to find how wonderfully each one has become fitted for the special work it has to do. But three things they all require and have, though they may arrive at them in different ways. The first of these is a long face and freely moving under jaw, with large useful grinding teeth to work up and chew the vegetable food; the second, a capacious stomach to hold and digest green meat enough to nourish such bulky bodies; and the third, good defensive weapons to protect themselves against each other, and against wild beasts. Weapons of attack they do not need, except for fighting among themselves; for being grass-feeders they do not attack other creatures, and this is one of the great differences between them and the flesh-feeding or carnivorous animals.

We need not look far to see these three chief characters of the vegetable-feeders in active work. Look at any horse as he grazes in the meadow, and see how his under jaw works from side to side as soon as he has a good mouthful. A peep into his mouth will show that he is using broad flat back teeth to grind the grass to pulp (see Fig. 67), and he will go on eating all day without overfilling the large stomach which lies within his barrel-shaped body. And as to his defences, if he is vicious, he will soon show that his front teeth are good weapons, while his hoofs will deal an ugly blow.

Then turn to the cow, quietly chewing the cud by his side; you will find that she has no upper front teeth, but only a hardened gum, upon which her under teeth bite as she crops the grass; but she too has broad flat teeth behind, while within she has a stomach with four compartments, and when she has filled one of these full of half-chewed grass, she lies down, and with a slight hiccough returns a ball of food to her mouth to be leisurely ground down. It is not difficult to see that to animals, such as wild cattle, antelopes, goats, and sheep, which often have to go far to seek their food, an arrangement of this kind, by which they may store provender in a larder for quiet enjoyment by-and-by, must be a great advantage. But the cow cannot defend herself with her teeth since she has no upper ones in front; in their stead she has strong horns which are quite as dangerous, so that an angry bull is an enemy not pleasant to meet.

Lastly, there is another fierce vegetable-feeding animal almost as dangerous as a bull, though we no longer come across him in England; for the Wild Boar, as he still flourishes in the forests of Germany, can inflict very ugly wounds with his lower eye-teeth which grow out and project over his upper lip, forming large tusks.

So we see that while the vegetable-feeding animals have three characters in common, namely, large flat grinders, a capacious stomach, and defensive weapons, their defences, on the other hand, may be of three different kinds, and they may depend upon horns, hoofs, or teeth for protection.

Now in the beginning, when we first meet with the milk-givers, these defences were not so complete in any of the vegetable-feeders as they are now. Of the elephants alone it may perhaps be said that they had large and formidable ancestors.[159] As to the rest, the huge hippopotamus and sharp-tusked boar were only represented by small animals;[160] and even later, when the hogs branched off in a line of their own, they had at first only ordinary teeth, which did not grow out as tusks.

Footnote 159. The Dinocerata of the Middle Eocene of America. These gigantic extinct animals, with tusks and horns, but very small brains, are believed by Professor Marsh to have connected the two groups the elephants and the hoofed animals among the early milk-givers.

Footnote 160. Anoplotherium; for this form and others, see p. 256.

So, too, the fierce horned rhinoceros had as an ancestor a hornless tapir-like creature,[161] and the graceful hoofed horse a little creature no larger than a fox, with five separate toes on his feet.[162] Lastly, all the horned animals which chew the cud,—oxen, buffaloes, antelopes, and deer,—were nowhere to be seen, and in their place were only some small elegant creatures without horns.[163]

It is only at a later period when the flesh-feeding animals grew strong and dangerous, and the vegetable-feeders had to struggle for their lives, that we begin to find the remains of hogs and hippopotamuses with tusks, rhinoceroses with nose-bones, and fleet horses which could take to their heels, or bite and kick their enemy to death; of stags with antlers, ever increasing in size; and of bulls and buffaloes, goats and antelopes, with true horns. For not only by this time were they persecuted by the flesh-feeders, but they themselves were becoming very numerous, and it was the strongest only that could secure feeding-grounds or carry off wives.

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