Of all the large Man-like Apes, those which, on the whole, make the nearest approach in bodily structure to man are the chimpanzees of Western and Central Equatorial Africa.
There is the bald-headed chimpanzee, which is very different from the true or common chimpanzee. The habits of the animal differ from those of the well-known or common chimpanzee. As already mentioned, chimpanzees inhabit Western and Central Equatorial Africa, where they range over a considerable area of country. Like all other Man-like Apes the chimpanzees are forest-dwelling animals, although on the coast of the Loango district they are found in mountains. their food is usually the various wild fruits which grow abundantly in these dense forests, but the bald-headed species will take kindly to an animal diet while in captivity. the chimpanzee either lives in separate families or in small groups of families. In man districts- as, for example, in the forest-regions of Central Africa- its habits are even more arboreal than those of the gorilla. Elsewhere as, for instance, on the south-west coast, it seems to live more upon the ground. The forest trees grow one above another is stages, of which the growth is so dense that it is difficult to get at them. The powerful stems, thickly overgrown with wild pepper, have branches from which hang long streamers of bearded moss, and also a parasitic growth of that remarkable fern called the elephant's ear. The large tun-shaped structures of the tree termites (white ants) are found in the loftier boughs.
When the chimpanzee goes on all-fours, he generally supports himself on the backs of his closed fingers rather than on the palm of the hand, and he goes sometimes on the soles of his feet, sometimes on his closed toes. His gait is also weak and vacillating, and he can stand upright on his feet for a still shorter time than the gorilla. At the same time he seeks support for his hands, or clasps them above his head, which is a little thrown back in order to maintain his balance. chimpanzees appear to be continually shifting their haunts in order to find fresh feeding-grounds. they build a kind of nest high up in the trees for their families; and the male of the species takes up his position for the night beneath the shelter afforded by the nest.
It is said that chimpanzees will generally take to flight at the sight of man, but that when driven to bay, or their retreat cut off, they will attack him fiercely. In captivity chimpanzees, when in health, are gentle, intelligent, and affectionate, readily learning to feed themselves with a spoon, or to drink out of a glass or cup. Unfortunately, however, their span of life in this country is but brief.
A word in regard to a fossil-ape found in the north-west India in rocks, belonging to the Pliocene or later division of the Tertiary period, and we have done with chimpanzees. It has always been a matter of surprise that no large Man-like Ape now inhabits the dense tropical forests of India or Burma, which would appear to be just as suitable for these creatures as are those of Borneo or Equatorial Africa. the discovery in India of a jaw of a large ape however, that large Man-like Apes must have once roamed over the plains of India. Why chimpanzees, together with hippopotomi and giraffes, which are likewise from fossil in India but are now confined to Africa, should have totally disappeared from the former country, is however, one of those puzzling problems connected with the distribution of animals which we have but little hope of answering satisfactorily. the fossil indian chimpanzee was found in the arid districts of the Punjah and since we know that the living man-like Apes dwell in the deepest gloom and solitude of primeval forest, where vegetation grows luxuriously and offers constant supply of fruits throughout the year, we may probably infer that the forests in which dwelt this ape, instead of being, as now, a sun-scorched somewhat desolate region. Evidence of the former existence of these forests afforded by the occurrence of numbers of fossil tree-stems in various parts of the same series of rocks from which the remains of the fossil chimpanzee obtained.
