Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/272

 gorilla's palate and muscles are like man's that he will be able to talk or pass out of the barking or roaring phase. The gorilla has what might be called "roaring pouches" that extend down the side of his neck. It is an interesting fact that there is evidence of these same pouches in man, although they are nearly atrophied from long disuse. It seems, therefore, that even if the gorilla does not learn man's speech, man at one time used the gorilla's roar or one of his own.

Man differs from most animals in the amount of variation in the different members of the species. The skull measurements of half-a-dozen lions, for example, will be much more nearly uniform than the skulls of half-a-dozen men. In this particular the gorilla is like man. Their skulls show great variation. The gorilla skulls I brought back will exemplify this. The death masks of these gorillas show another interesting thing which I never noticed until I put the masks of the animals shot on Mt. Mikeno in one group and those shot on Mt. Karisimbi in another. The male and female of Mikeno resemble each other more nearly than either of them do any of the Karisimbi gorillas. Likewise the three Karisimbi gorillas have features more alike than any of them are like either of the Mikeno faces. Whether these are family resemblances or whether they arise from geography, which seems doubtful, as the mountains merge in a saddle at between 10,000 and 11,000 feet, or whether it is accidental I do not know. But the fact suggests a line of study.