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Show 684 LETTER FROM MR. R. B. N. WALKER. [Nov. 4, September 10th by Henry Bayley, Esq.: new to the Society's collection . 2. AViolet-naped Lory (Eos riciniata), purchased September 26th, being of a species new to the Society's extensive collection of Parrots. The following extracts from a letter addressed by Mr. R. B. N. Walker, C.M.Z.S., to Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., and communicated to the Society by the latter, were read :- " Hulk ' Princess Eoyal,' " Corisco Bay, "May 5, 1873. " I regret to inform you that m y hopes of sending a live Gorilla to the Zoological Society of London have once more been disappointed, and in a most singular manner. " O n the 11th ult., I purchased from a native a fine healthy male Gorilla, apparently about two years of age. Being under the impression that those living specimens which I had formerly succeeded in obtaining (five in all) had been taken too much care of, I determined in the present instance to adopt a different system and to allow the animal to have its own way, simply taking precautions to prevent its being injured and at the same time to guard against its destructive and mischievous propensities. When purchased, the animal was by no means savage or spiteful, but rather what may be more properly termed shy and suspicious of strangers : at the expiration of about a week, however, it became sufficiently tame and confiding to admit of its being allowed to run about loose and to do as it liked; at the same time its food, instead of being confined to the fruits on which it is supposed to feed in its wild state, consisted in general of fragments from m y own table and that of the mate, which, however, was varied by any thing edible which it could lay its hands on, and occasionally by a basin of condensed milk with a raw egg beaten up in it, and by fruit, including that of a species of Amomum, which it was very fond of, but which we found invariably to cause severe diarrhoea when eaten alone in any quantity ; the disease, however, was soon checked by administering a raw egg and a few drops of chlorodyne. Finding that the animal had become so tame, it was left entirely to its own devices, especially as every one in the ship was at the same time so very busy as not to be able to pay much attention to it. It soon became quite at home in the hulk, alternately eating, sleeping, and playing with a large bull terrier (of by no means the most amiable disposition), which has a most decided dislike to negroes, but nevertheless took very kindly to the Gorilla (although of the same colour as natives), so that the two animals became constant playfellows. '' By allowing the Gorilla to rough it, instead of constantly watching it and appointing some one to take care of it, in which case (according to m y own experience during twenty-two years) these animals become so much attached to their keeper or attendant that a separation from him almost invariably causes these affectionate apes to pine |