A shipping tragedy in the 19thcentury has stranded woman and a man in the wilds of Africa. The lady gives birth to a son in their own tree house, and is pregnant. A family of apes stumble across the home and in the resulting panic, both parents have been murdered soon after. A lady ape raises him, and takes the small boy for a replacement for the infant. Twenty years after, Captain Phillippe D'Arnot discovers the guy who thinks he is an ape. Evidence within the tree dwelling takes it upon himself to go back the guy to culture, and leads him to believe that he is the descendant of the Earl of Greystoke.