Читать книгу Gorillas & Chimpanzees - Garner Richard Lynch - Страница 5

Next to man, the chimpanzee occupies the highest plane in the scale of nature. His mental and social traits, together with his physical type, assign him to this place.

In his distribution, he is confined to Equatorial Africa. His habitat, roughly outlined, is from the fourth parallel north of the equator to the fifth parallel south of it, along the west coast, and extends eastward about half-way across the continent. His range can be defined with more precision, but its exact limits are not quite certain. Its boundary on the north is defined by the Kameroon valley, slightly curving to the north, but its extent eastward is not well known. He does not appear to be found anywhere north of this river, and it is quite certain that the few specimens attributed to the north coast of the Gulf of Guinea do not belong to that territory. On the south, its boundary starts from the coast, at a point near the fifth parallel, curves northward, crossing the Congo near Stanley Pool, pursues a north-east course, to the centre of the Congo State, again curves southward, across the Upper Congo, towards the north end of Lake Tanganyika. Its limits appear to conform more to isothermal lines, than to the rigid lines of geometry.

Specimens are sometimes secured by collectors beyond the limits mentioned, but so far as I can ascertain they appear to have been captured within these limits. There are numerous centres of population. This ape is not strictly confined to any definite topography, but occupies the upland forests or the low basin lands.

In one section he is known to the natives by one name, and in another by quite a different one. The name chimpanzee is of native origin. In the Fiot tongue the name of the ape is chimpan, which is a slight corruption of the true name. It is properly a compound word, the first syllable is from the Fiot word tyi, which white men erroneously pronounce like "chee." It means "small," and is found in many of the native compounds. The latter syllable is from mpâ, a bushman, hence the word literally means, in the Fiot tongue, "a small bushman."

Among other tribes the common name of the ape is ntyigo. The two names appear to come from the same ultimate source. The latter is derived from the Mpongwe word ntyia, blood, hence breed, and the word iga, the forest, and literally means the "breed of the forest." The same idea is involved in the two names, and both convey the oblique idea that the animal is something more like man than other animals are.

There are two distinct types of this ape, and they are now regarded as two species. One of them is distributed throughout the entire habitat described, while the other is only known south of the equator, between the second and fifth parallels, and west of the Congo. Both kinds are found within these limits, but the variety which is confined to that region is called, by the tribes that know the ape, the kulu-kamba, in contradistinction to the other kind, known as ntyigo. This name is derived from kulu, the onomotope of the sound made by the animal and the native verb kamba, to speak, hence the name literally means the thing "that speaks kulu."

In certain points the common variety differs from the kulu-kamba in a degree that would indicate that they belong to distinct species, but the skulls and skeletons are so nearly the same, that no one can identify them with certainty. In life, however, it is not difficult to distinguish them.

The ntyigo has a longer face and more prominent nose than the kulu. His complexion is of all shades of brown, from a light tan to a dark, dingy mummy colour. He has a thin coat of short black hair, which is often described as brown, but that effect is due to the colour of his skin blending with that of his suit. In early life his hair is quite black, but in advanced age the ends are tipped with a dull white, giving him a dingy grey colour. The change is due to the same causes that produce grey hairs on the human body. But there is one point in which they differ. The entire hair of the human becomes white with age, while only the end of it does so in the chimpanzee. In the human, one hair becomes white, while another retains its natural colour, but in this ape all the hairs appear to undergo the same change.

In very aged specimens the outer part of the hair often assumes a dirty, brownish colour, which is due to the want of vascular action to supply the colour pigment, and the same effect is often seen in preserved specimens, for the same reason that the hair of an Egyptian mummy is brown, while in life it was doubtless a jet black. In this ape the hair is uniformly black, except the small tuft of white at the base of the spinal column and a few white hairs on the lower lip and chin. I have examined about sixty living specimens and I have never found any other colour among them only from the cause mentioned. The normal colour of both sexes is the same.

The kulu, as a rule, has but little hair on the top of its head, but that on the back of it and on the neck is much longer than elsewhere on the body, and longer on them than on other apes.

Much stress is laid by some writers on the bald head of one ape and the parted hair on that of another. These features cannot be relied upon as having any specific meaning, unless there are as many species as there are apes. Sometimes a specimen has no hair on the summit of its head, while another differs from it in this respect alone by having a suit of hair more or less dense, and yet in every other respect they are the same. Some of them have the hair growing almost down to the eyebrows, and each hair appears to diverge from a common centre like the radii of a sphere: another of the same species will have the hair parted in the middle as neatly as if it had been combed, while another may have it in wild disorder. The same thing is noticed in certain monkeys, and it is equally true of the human being. As a factor in classifying them it signifies nothing. It may be remarked that as a whole the kulu is inclined to have little hair upon the crown of the head.

Between the two species there is a close alliance, but the males differ more than the females. This is especially true in the structure of certain organs.

The face in youth is quite free from hairs, but in the adult state there is, in both sexes, a slight tendency to grow a light down over the cheeks.

The colour of the skin is not uniform in all parts of the body, especially on the face. Some specimens have patches of dark colour set in a lighter ground. Sometimes certain parts of the face will be dark, and other parts light. I have seen one specimen quite freckled.

It is said by some that the skin is light in colour when young, and becomes darker with age, but such is not the case. It is true that the skin darkens a few shades as the cuticle hardens, but there is no transition from one colour to another, and this slight change of shade is only on the exposed parts.

The kulu has a short, round face, very much like that of a human. In early life it is quite free from hairs, but, like the other, a slight down appears with age. He has a heavy suit of hair on the body. It is coarser than that of the ntyigo, longer, and inclined to wave, giving it a fluffy aspect. The colour is jet black, except a small tuft of white about the base of the spine.

The skin varies in colour less than in the ntyigo, and the darker shades seldom appear. The eyes are a shade darker, and in both species the parts of the eye which are white in man are brown in the chimpanzee, gradually shading off into a yellow near the base of the optic nerve. As a rule, the kulu has a clear, open visage, with a kindly expression. It is confiding and affectionate to a degree beyond any other animal. It is more intelligent than its confrère, and displays the faculty of reason almost like a human being.

One important point in which these apes differ is in the scope and quality of voice. The kulu makes a greater range of vocal sounds than the other. Some of them are soft and musical, while those uttered by the ntyigo are fewer in number and more harsh in quality. One of them resembles the bark of a dog, and another is a sharp screaming sound.

The kulu evinces a certain sense of gratitude, while the ntyigo appears to be almost devoid of this instinct. There are many traits in which they differ, but human beings, of the same family, also differ in these qualities.

The points in which they coincide are many, and after a brief review of them, we may consider the question of making two species of them, or assigning them to the same.

The skeletons, as we have noted, are the same in form, size and proportion. Their muscular, nervous, and veinous systems are the same, except a slight structural variation in the genital organs of the males, and the degree of mobility in certain facial muscles. The character of their food, and the mode of eating it, are the same in each. In captivity they appear to regard each other as one of their own kind, but whether they mate or not remains to be learned.

Such is the sum of the likenesses and differences between the two extreme types of this genus; but with so many points in common, and so few in which they differ, it is a matter of serious doubt whether they can be said to constitute two distinct species, or only two marked varieties of a common species. This doubt is further emphasised by the fact that all the way between these two extremes are many gradations of intermediate types, so that it is next to impossible to say where one ends and the other begins.

In view of all these facts, I believe them to be two well-defined varieties of the same species; they are the white man and the negro of a common stock. They are the patrician and plebeian of one race, or the nobility and yeomanry of one tribe. They are like different phases of the same moon. The kulu-kamba is simply a high order of chimpanzee.

It is quite true that two varieties of one species usually have the same vocal characteristics, and this appears to be the strongest point in favour of assigning them to separate species, but it is not impossible that even this may be waived.

Leaving this question for others to decide, as they find the evidence to sustain them, we shall, for the present, regard them as one kind, and consider their physical, social and mental status.

Whether they be all of one species, or divided into many, the same habits, traits, and modes of life prevail throughout the entire group, so that one description will apply to all, so far as we have to deal with them in general. There are many incidents to be related elsewhere, which apply to individuals of the special kinds mentioned, but for the present the term chimpanzee is meant to include the whole group, except where it may be otherwise specified.