Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/275

 and are from eight to fifteen meters away from the neighbouring group, so that the various groups seemed closed off from each other by the thick riot of plants, like various dwellings. From the size of the nests we see that always only two of them belong to adult animals; if there are more nests present, these are always smaller and therefore belong to the half-grown young. From this observation we get the noteworthy fact that the gorilla lives in monogamy."

I cannot say that my observations corroborate this deduction. In one of the bands I saw there were three adult males. They might under his theory have been heads of three families. But in the other band there was but one male and several females. The extra females may have been spinster aunts of the family, but on the other hand, it might just as well have been a case of polygamy. The truth is that people know little about the habits of the gorilla. Really to know about an animal requires long and intimate study. Comparatively few people have even shot gorillas. Gorilla skeletons, even, have not been common for study like those of other animals. The avidity with which the doctors of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York seized upon the body of John Daniel shows both how rare and how important the opportunity to study the gorilla is to the science of medicine as well as to that of comparative anatomy. And even less of study has been given the gorilla's living habits than has been devoted to his dead body and bones. Most of the information which man can get of and from this nearest relative