CHAPTER IV 



APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS continued 



THE OLD WORLD MONKEYS AND BABOONS continued 



IN the preceding chapter we have considered such of the Old World monkeys 

 as have no cheek pouches, but possess sacculated stomachs, and in which the legs 

 are longer than the arms. In systematic zoology these constitute the subfamily 

 Colobintz, of the family Cercopithedda. We have now to consider the remainder of 

 the Old World monkeys, together with the baboons, which, although belonging to 

 the same great family, constitute the separate large subfamily of the Cercopithecince. 

 This group is characterized by the circumstance that all its members are furnished 

 with cheek pouches, but their stomachs are simple, and the arms and legs are of 

 nearly the same length. 



THE GUENONS 

 Genus Cercopithecus 



Since we have no English name to distinguish this group of African monkeys 

 from others of the same family, it will be found convenient to use the French name 

 Guenon, meaning one who grimaces, which appears to have been especially applied 

 to the monkeys of this group, as being those with which we are most familiar in 

 menageries and shows. 



As we have said, these monkeys are strictly confined to Africa, where they are 

 represented by more than twenty species, of which the larger proportion are found 

 on the western side of the continent. None of them are of large size, and they 

 present the following features by which they are characterized as a genus. 



In build they are comparatively slender, and their muzzle is either 

 Characteristics , , , . ^, . . ., . . . , , , 



short, or at least not very long. Their tail is invariably long and 



slender, and the naked callosities on the buttocks are of comparatively small size. 

 For another important point of distinction we must have recourse to the dried 

 skulls, an examination of which will show that the last molar or wisdom-tooth on 

 each side of the lower jaw consists of four tubercles only, and of these the front 

 and hind pairs are connected by a pair of transverse ridges. In this respect the 

 guenous differ, not only from the monkeys described in the last chapter, but like- 

 wise from all those to be subsequently noticed, in which the last lower molar has a 

 fifth tubercle forming a kind of heel projecting from behind the second transverse 

 ridge. 



(90) 



