I 2 6 APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS 



fore ; who giving information that all things are safe, in they rush with their whole 

 body, and make a quick dispatch. Therefore they go very quiet and silent to their 

 prey ; and if their young chance to make a noise, they chastise them with their 

 fists; but if they find the coast clear, then every one hath a different noise to 

 express his joy. Nor could there be any to hinder them from further multiplying, 

 but that they fall sometimes into the ruder hands of the wild beasts, which they 

 have no way to avoid but by a timely flight, or by creeping into the clefts of the 

 rocks. If they find no safety in flight, they make a virtue of necessity, stand their 

 ground, and, filling their paws full of dust or sand, fling it into the eyes of their 

 assailant, and then to their heels again." 



Although L,udolph may have mixed up some other monkeys with them, there 

 can be little doubt but that in the main this marvelous account refers to the 

 Arabian baboon, which is still so common in Abyssinia. This identification is 

 strongly supported by his mention of the large number of individuals in a troop, 

 by the reference to rocks, by the search after insects, and also by the allusion to 

 encounters with leopards. It must, however, be confessed that the figures of 

 monkeys with which L,udolph's narrative is illustrated, bear but little resemblance 

 to baboons, although this may well be explained by the degree of license which the 

 engravers of his epoch seem to have allowed themselves in such matters. 



We now proceed to notice in detail the better known of the various species 

 of baboons, commencing with the more typical ones with comparatively long 

 tails, and concluding with the others, like the drill and mandrill, in which these 

 appendages are reduced to their smallest dimensions. Our first example will be 



THE ARABIAN OR SACRED BABOON {Cynocephalus hamadryas) 



The Arabian, or sacred baboon, is the species so commonly represented on the 

 ancient monuments of Egypt, and may be easily recognized by its generally ashy- 

 gray color, and the large mane with which the neck and shoulders of the males 

 are covered, as is well shown in our illustration. The males of this species are 

 about as large as a good-sized pointer dog. The tail is of considerable length, and 

 terminates in a tuft of long hair. The face has long whiskers of a slaty color, and 

 is itself, like the ears, flesh colored. The hands are black, and the large naked 

 callosities on the buttocks bright red. The shaggy mane on the neck and shoulders 

 of the males extends backward over a considerable portion of the body, and all the 

 hairs are ringed with different colors, so as to produce that speckled appearance 

 common to so many African monkeys. The females and young are quite devoid of 

 this mane ; the former being nearly as large as the males. The snout is very long, 

 and has not the prominent tumor-like swellings characterizing the short-tailed 

 baboons. The nostrils project somewhat in front of the plane of the upper lip, like 

 those of a dog, and are similarly divided by a vertical furrow. The eyes are sur- 

 rounded by a light-colored ring, and the whiskers are brushed back so as to cover 

 the ears. If the gelada baboon be rightly compared to a black French poodle, the 

 males of the present species might be still more appropriately likened to a gray one, 

 did such a creature exist. 



