60 MAMMALIA. 



extent the abhorrence with which we are apt to regard them. It has lately been discovered that they chiefly 

 inhabit barren stony places, where they subsist, for the most part, upon scorpions ; to procure which they employ 

 their hands to lift up the numerous loose stones, under most of which one or more of these creatures commonly 

 lie concealed ; their stings they extract with dexterity. Accordingly, we find that the Baboons are expressly 

 modified for traversing the ground on all-fours, and are furnished with efficient hands ; their eyes are peculiarly 

 placed, directed downwards along the visage. Want of space necessarily prevents us, generally, from noticing 

 these highly interesting relations, afforded by the special modifications of structure in reference to habit: but 

 we avail ourselves of the present instance (which is little known*) to call attention to them. 



With the Baboons, the series of Catarrhini (Geof.) terminates ; and we may observe that the 

 Simiadce fall under three principal divisions. First, that of the Apes, (comprising the Chimpanzee, 

 Ourangs, and Gibbons), tail-less genera, which have the liver divided as in Man, an appendage 

 to the ccecum, &c. Second, the slender-limbed Monkeys, with sacculated stomachs and longer 

 intestines (or the Doucs, and most probably the Colobins), all of which have exceedingly long tails. 

 Third, those with shorter and stouter limbs, a simple stomach, and tail varying in length from a 

 tubercle to longer thau the body. Tbese last (or the true Monkeys, Macaques, Magots, and 

 Baboons), are all partly insectivorous ; and the habit mentioned of the Baboons, of turning over stones 

 in quest of prey, applies perhaps more or less to all of them, but particularly to the Magot and some 

 Monkeys. In the two first divisions, the coat consists of only one sort of hair ; in the last of two 

 sorts, the longer and coarser of which is mostly annulated witli two colours. It is remarkable that 

 none of the genera are common to Asia and Africa (one Baboon only extending to Arabia), and, until 

 very recently, no remains of any had occurred in a fossil state ; but the jaw of one said to be 

 allied to the Gibbons has lately been detected in a tertiary deposit, at Sanson, France ; and some bones, 

 adjudged to be those of Macaques, in the tertiary ranges of northern India.] 



The Monkey-like Animals of the New World, 



[Platyrrhini, Geo/.], — 



Have four grinders more than the others, thirty-six in all ; the tail [with very few excep- 

 tions] long ; no cheek-pouches ; the buttocks hairy and without callosities ; nostrils opening 

 on the sides of the nose, and not underneath ; [the thumbs of the anterior hands no longer 

 opposable - }"-] All the great Quadrumana of America pertain to this division. % Their large in- 

 testines are less inflated, and their ccecum longer and more slender than in the preceding 

 divisions. 



The tails of some of them are prehensile, that is to say, their extremity can twist round a 

 body with sufficient force to seize it as with a hand.§ Such have been designated Sapajous 

 {Cebus, Erxl.) 



At their head may be placed the 



Stentors {Mycetes, Illiger), — 



Or Howling Monkeys [Jlouatfes of the French], which are distinguished by a pyramidal bead, the 

 upper jaw of which descends much below the cranium, while the branches of the lower one ascend 

 very high, for the purpose of lodging a bony drum, formed by a vesicular inflation of the hyoid bone, 

 which communicates with their larynx, and imparts to their voice prodigious volume and a most 

 frightful sound. Hence the appellations which have been bestowed on them. The prehensile portion 

 of their tail is naked beneath. 



[The Rufous Stentor (Sim. seniculus, Buff., Supp. vii. 25), the Ursine Stentor (Mentor ursinus, Geoff.), and 

 at least five other species, are now tolerably established. They are shaggy animals, averaging the size of a Fox, 

 of different shades of brown or blackish, the females of some being differently coloured from the males ; such is 

 M. barbatus, Spix, pi. 32, of which the male is black and bearded, the female and young pale yellowish-grey. || 

 They are of an indolent and social disposition, and grave deportment ; utter their hideous yells and howling by 

 night ; subsist on fruits and foliage, and are deemed good eating.] 



* For the information communicated, we are indebted to Dr. A. 

 Smith, the conductor of the South African expedition from the Cape 

 colony. — Ed. 



t They are but slightly so in many of the Simitida. — Ed. 



t By this is meant, that the Marmosets and Tamarins [Ouistitis of 

 our author) are excluded from the generalization. — Ed. 



§ This organ possessing in an eminent degree the sense of touch, 

 where the character is most developed. — Ed. 



|| Cuvier accordingly suggests, inadvertently, that the M. straminenn 

 Spix, pi. 31, which is entirely of a straw-yellow colour, may be the 

 female of some other ; Spix, however, figures a male. — Ed. 



