Liberia ^ 



but the sudden discharge of our firearms brought them to their 

 senses." ' 



Some of the interior natives whom I met on the coast 

 in August, 1904, told me in describing the chimpanzee that 

 it beat with its hands on hollow logs, accompanying the action 

 by hooting, and that quite a party of these apes would gather 

 together for this drumming and shouting. The information 

 was given without any attempt to elicit it on my part, and 

 corresponded most curiously with similar stories gathered 

 through the natives of Unyoro and Toro in the Uganda 

 Protectorate. 



In spite of the constant talk of Liberians about "baboons," 

 by which, as before stated, they mean the chimpanzee, it is by 

 no means certain that any real baboons are found in the forest 

 region of Liberia. Those that are met with in coast towns 

 seem to have come from the regions nearer the Sierra Leone 

 frontier, or have been brought down by Mandingos from the 

 plateaux beyond the forest. It is doubtful whether in any 

 part of West Africa baboons inhabit the dense forest. They 

 prefer the more open country of rocks and grass plains. No 

 species of baboon [Papio) has been recorded as indigenous to 

 Liberia by Biittikofer, or by any other European collector. 

 On the other hand, the sooty mangabey {Cercocebus fulighiosiis) 

 is very common. I have seen it myself in the mangrove swamps, 

 where it is often in company with the Ursine colobus. This 

 particular mangabey is of an almost uniform chinchilla-grey 

 in colour, with a pinkish yellow face and the white eyelids so 

 characteristic of this genus. The Mangabeys are nearly relateci 

 to the baboons in structure, and have very baboon-like habits, 

 such as, for example, their method of greeting friends with a 

 rapid smacking of the lips. 



' From "A Journey to Kpondia Hill," Liberia, February, 1905. 



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