BABOON. 



265 



In confinement, the Babillard is a very quarrel- 

 some and domineering little bird, being in general, ' 

 on this account, quite unfit for the aviary, as it will at- [ 

 tack, and completely persecute, birds even double or 

 treble its own size and apparent force. It is a more 

 active species, and quicker in its movements, than any 

 of its British congeners ; and it often climbs along 

 the wires, a habit not observed in the rest. It also 

 frequently throws itself over backwards when in a 

 large cage, performing somersets in the air, often for 

 seven or eight times in succession. It is a lively and 

 healthy creature in captivity, and soon becomes ex- 

 tremely familiar and tame. 



The female resembles the male in plumage, and 

 the young only differ in the crown of the head being 

 of the same colour with the back. 



BABOON. The popular name of a subdivision 

 of the quadrurnana, or four-handed animals, extending 

 to more than one genus, and including animals of 

 which both the characters and the habits vary consi- 

 derably, and some to which the name does not very 

 well apply. The names, ape, baboon, and monkey, 

 have been sometimes all applied to the same species, 

 different species have been called by the same name, 

 and the same species have been called by different 

 names, so that it seems almost impossible to get rid 

 of the confusion in any other way than by a general 

 muster of all the species, and naming them anew. It 

 is doubtful if even that would be sufficient, and it is 

 certain that, with only a single specimen of each, it 

 would not. There appear to be considerable varieties 

 arising from age, haunt, and other circumstances ; 

 and these are not confined to mere differences of 

 colour, to which most species of animals are more or 

 less subject ; but they extend to size ; and, in so far 

 as difference of haunt is accompanied by a difference 

 of food, they extend also to disposition. 



Taking the general character from those species 

 which may be regarded as the most typical of the 

 creature, that is from those which least resemble any 

 of the other groups of quadrumana, for that is all which 

 is in general meant by being typical, we might infer 

 that there would be more variet}' and more disposition 

 to variety in the baboons than in the apes, or perhaps 

 even in the monkeys, if restricted either to those of the 

 eastern continent, or those of the western. The apes, 

 properly so called, are so very local, that there is no 

 scope for breaking them into climatal varieties, and 

 though, as might be expected, there appears to be 

 differences between the chimpansee of Asia and of 

 Africa, yet in each country, that, the most erratic of 

 all the true apes, appears to be constant to its type. 



The true apes are, in general, such bad walkers, that 

 their range is confined to the forest, and their food to 

 what they find upon the trees , they are thus as much 

 like each other in habits as human beings which 

 inhabit the same city and live in the same manner, 

 or rather like deer in the same park, or sheep on the 

 same down ; and it is well known that, under these 

 circumstances, instead of there being any disposi- 

 tion to run into varieties, there is a disposition the 

 other way. 



It is not so with the baboons properly so called. 

 They no doubt are climbers, as all four-handed ani- 

 mals are, climbing being the sole, or at least the chief 

 use of that form of organisation. But they are not 

 exclusively made for climbing ; their anterior and 

 posterior extremities have no very marked disparity 

 in length ; the soles of their hind feet apply to the 



ground; their limbs, though clumsy as organs of 

 progressive motion compared with those of running 

 animals, have not the wriggling tlexibilityof those 

 of the climbers ; and they can accordingly walk and 

 run with considerable velocity. Thus, though the 

 baboons are, to a certain extent, forest animals, they 

 are not exclusively so. They are so formed that they 

 could live habitually in the forest if there were no 

 other pastures, or in other pastures, if there were no 

 forest. 



Now, it agrees with analogy, and also with the 

 facts, that when any production of nature, whether 

 animal or vegetable, has this compound nature, it can, 

 either by art or by natural circumstances, be so worked 

 upon one part of the compound, as to take its leading 

 character from that, and in part lose the other ; and 

 this holds whether the circumstance by means of which 

 it -is worked be food, climate, or any other. We find 

 proofs of this in man himself, and in all that man cul- 

 tivates, and we see so many additional instances of its 

 operation in wild nature, that we can have no doubt 

 of its being a very general and invariable law of nature, 

 the operation of which must, in all cases where we 

 have difficulty about species, except where the diffi- 

 culty is of our own making, be one of the chief causes 

 of that difficulty. That this is at least one of the 

 chief causes of that uncertainty which obscures 

 part of the history of the baboons, there can be no 

 doubt. 



Indeed, the characters upon which we proceed in 

 the formation of groups and genera, are not unfre- 

 qucntly the causes of more difficulty to us than if we 

 had left classification altogether alone. They are 

 often mere differences of form in parts of the uses of 

 which we know nothing; and as sue!), it is impossible 

 to connect them with any th ng useful any thing 

 which can lead to a knowledge of the disposition or 

 habits of that of which they are taken as the charac- 

 ters. That this has been the case with the quadru- 

 mana of the old continent, there is little doubt : the 

 foundations of the grouping have been the presence or 

 the absence of cheek pouches or tails ; and as we 

 know not very well the uses either of the one or the 

 other (none of the species on the old continent 

 having prehensile tails), the conclusions which we 

 draw cannot contain more information than the pre- 

 mises from which we draw them. If the question 

 were between having no tail and having a very large 

 one, which we might suppose effective in balancing 

 the body, as between the apes proper and the mon- 

 keys, there might be at least a show of reasoning set 

 up ; but when it is between having no tail and having 

 next to none, as is the case with some of the animals 

 classed a? baboons, there is but little scope for philo- 

 sophy in it. 



But there are other circumstances in the structure 

 of the baboons which tend to show that they have a 

 greater range or diversity of habit than the apes : 

 their mouths are more of prehensile instruments ; and 

 the nostrils are carried forward near to the muzzle, as 

 if for the purpose of guiding the mouth in the selec- 

 tion of that which it seizes. They have more of both 

 the structure and the expression of animals which arc, 

 in part at least, carnivorous ; and when both struc- 

 ture and expression point to any habit, that habit is 

 never wanting if there be opportunity for its exercise. 



These observations will, in part at least, cxphiin 

 why there is not that clearness of general definition 

 about the baboons, which we find in some of the 



