THE DARWINIAN THEORY FURTHER ILLUSTRATED.

Dunstan Times, Issue 685, 4 June 1875, Page 3

THE DARWINIAN THEORY FURTHER ILLUSTRATED.

The following description of the Soko or Gorilla is taken from the second volume of tbo last Journals of Livingstone :—“ Four gorillas, or sokos, wore killed yesterday : an extensive grass burning forced them out of their usual haunt, and coming on the plain they wore speared. They often go erect, but place the hands on their head, as if to steady the body. When seen thus the soko is an ungainly boast. Tire most sentimental young lady would not call him ‘ a dear,’ but a bandy-legged, pot-bellied, low-looking vagabond, without a particle of the gentleman in him. Other animals, especially the antelopes, arc graceful, and it is pleasant to see them, cither at rest or in motion ; the natives also are well made, lithe and comely to behold ; but the soko if largo, would do welljto stand for a picture of the devil.

“ Ho takes away my appetite by his disgus' ing beast - a'ity of appearance. His light yellow face shows off his ugly whiskers and faint apology for a board ; the forehead villanously low, with high ears, is well in the background of the great dog-mouth ; the teeth are slightly human, but the canines show the beast by their largo devolopemont. The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the natives. The fiesh of the feet is yellow, and the eagerness with which, the Manyuema devour it leaves the impression that eating soko was the first stage by which they arrived at being cannibals ; they say the fiesh is delicious. The soko is presented by some to be extremely knowing, successfully stalking men and women while at their work, kidra plug children, and running up trees with them —he seems to be amused by the sight of the young native in his arms, but comes down when tempted by a bunch of bananas and as he lifts that drops’Tho child. . .

• . . Numbers of them come down in the forest, witliin a hundred yards of our camp, and would be unknown but forgiving tongue like fox-hounds—this is their nearest approach to speech. A man'hoeing was stalked by a soko, and seized ; he roared out but the soko giggled and grinned and left him as if he had done it in play. A child caught up by aisoko is often abused by being pinched and let fall. .•. . . Sokes collected together, and make a drumming noise, sone say with hollow trees then hurst forth into loud yells, which are imitated by the natives' emhryotio music. If a man has no spear the" soko goes away quite satisfied, hut if wounded he seizes the wrist, lops off the fingers, and spits them out, slaps the cheeks of his victim, and bites without breaking the skin. He draws out a spear(but never uses it), and takes some leaves and stuffs tlrem’into his wound to staunch the blood ; be does not wish an encounter with armed man. He sees women do him no harm, and never molests them ; a man without a spear is nearly safe from him. They beat hollow trees and drums with hands, and then scream as music to it ; when men heard them they go to the sokos ; hut soko never go to men with hostility. Manyuema say, ‘ Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him.’ “ They live in communities of ahout 10, each having his own female. An intruder from another camp is beaten off with their fists and loud yells. If one trios to seize the female of another, he is caught on the ground, and all unite in boxing and biting the offender. A male often carries a child, especially if they are passing from onepatch of forest to another over a grassy space ; he then gives it to the mother.”

The inclination which the sokos display towards instrumental music is common, however, to many varieties cf the monkey tribe. There is one, the chimpanzee, which uses drum-sticks, employing his hands and feet with equal dexterity in wielding them. Tame monkeys can he easily taught the use of the castanets ; and it is a curious circumstance that in all parts of the world the drum is the first musical instrument constructed by the savage, it being, like that of the chimpanzee, nothing more, in its primitive form than a hollow cylinder of wood ; while the cry of the lowest races of man in the Andaman Islands, for example, is indistinguishable from that of the chimpanzee.

A Wellerism. —“ A play upon words,” as the fireman said when he thrust his hose into the bookseller’s shop"|to put out the flames.

Question for Actors.—Can a man be said to work when he plays ? This is the way they do it in California if reports are to he credited. A German was riding along the streets in Sacramento, when ho heard a pistol-shot behind him, and felt his hat vibrated. He turned, saw a man with a revolver, took off hie hat, and found a hullethole. “ Did you shoot at me?” asked the German Y “ es,” replied the other party ; “ You must be mistaken,” said the German ; “ I have owned the horse for three years.” “Well,” said the other, “when I come to look at him, 1 believe I am mistaken. Excuse mo, sir. Won’t you take a drink ?” During a severe storm which occurcd at night, the wife of a hill farmer in Roxburghshire was awakened by the crashing sound produced by the fall of a tree! She awoke her husband with the exclamation, “ Got up, gudoman, for sureoneuch this is the last day !” “ Lie still, woman,” replied her impatient lord ; “ wha over hoard o’ the last day coinin’ in tho middle o’ the nicht

A Farming gentleman of 85, ■wont to have himself insured—life, not fire. Tire clerk, after seeing him spoil out his ago “ aightee fife,” said sharply, “ Sir, you are too old for us to take the risk.” “ Why so ?” queries the old man. “ Because speedly death is too sure a thing.” “ Well I’ve keen at your tables,” said old 85, “ and I find there ain’t one man dies at my age to 100 that die younger.” The clerk couldn’t argue, but again regretted it wouldn’t do.