Surrounded by friends, Miss Congo, young female gorilla, passed away last week at the John Ringling estate, Sarasota, Fla. For three years she had lived in the U. S., and although her friends were many, she remained always solemn, quiet; some said homesick for the sunny slopes near Lake Kivu in Belgian Congo, where she had been captured. The immediate cause of death was colitis, an intestinal disease often contracted by man, but not often fatal.

Miss Congo was one of the few young females in the U. S. who believed in the serious salon. Dr. Robert Mearns Yerkes, famed Yale psychologist, visited her in 1926; gave her many intelligence tests; was impressed by her clarity of thought, her apparent willingness to cooperate. Other scientists were equally interested. A year and a half ago, Dr. Adolph Hans Schultz, anatomist of Johns Hopkins University, wrote to Dexter Fellowes of the Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus, asking for Miss Congo’s body when she died. Life then seemed just beginning for the growing gorilla girl. She lived on the Ringling estate waiting to grow up; then to step into a feature part on the Ringling program. Last week scientists at Johns Hopkins University waited eagerly for her dead body. They would dissect it thoroughly; study it from the point of view of evolution, comparative anatomy, brain structure; prepare the first complete study of the animal.

Gorillas may languish in captivity but they do not necessarily die. Every death has its legitimate biological cause; homesickness and heartache are not included. This is equally true of all other inmates of zoo & circus. It has never been demonstrated that wild animals will die of captivity alone. Climate, food, disease are the three most powerful agents of death. Gorillas are much happier in southern lands, although they often adapt themselves to northern conditions. The New York Zoological Park has entertained gorillas for considerable lengths of time before sending them south; the Philadelphia Zoological Park has a grave gorilla in its younger set.

Most monkeys are gay & cheerful, but the proboscis monkey from Malaysia and the howling monkey from the tropics are a pair of supercilious snobs. Dr. Raymond Lee Ditmars of the N. Y. Zoological Garden has kept a howling monkey for three years only by pampering and coddling it, keeping it in a fine special cage, with “Vitaglass” windows to admit the ultraviolet ray.

Caribou and reindeer are extremely insistent on having the right climate; the caribou will compromise somewhat on food, but the reindeer goes on a hunger strike unless it is fed reindeer moss, a delicacy difficult to obtain, and impossible to import.

Many birds settle down to a drab existence in captivity although in excellent health. The flamingo gradually loses its brilliant red color, turns an ugly grey.

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