266 



BABOON. 



allied sections, and also why we have not been able 

 to give some account of them as indicating the gene- 

 ral natural character of some locality or district. The 

 section contains (part of) several genera differing 

 considerably in their localities and habits ; these 

 demand some new arrangement ; but as that arrange- 

 ment falls not within the province of a popular work, 

 we purpose to follow the arrangement of Cuvier, 

 noticing the general characters of each sub-division 

 and giving a slight enumeration of at least the more 

 remarkable and better known species. 



In their form and expression, the baboons, in all 

 their varieties, are the least handsome, or perhaps it 

 is more accurate to say, the most positively ugly 

 of all the mammalia. Though the form of the 

 head approaches that of the beasts of prey, there 

 still remains as much of resemblance to man as 

 forms a very ugly caricature ; and though the ex- 

 pression is ferocious, it is not the kind of ferocity 

 which we find in carnivorous animals. The most 

 savage expression which we find among those animals 

 whose habit it is to kill prey, sits, as one would say, 

 naturally upon them, is in keeping and congruity 

 with the whole of their character and habits ; and 

 when we admit the habit, which is but another name 

 for the use or purpose of the animal in the economy 

 of nature, we must also admit that the expression is 

 natural, and that, were it more mild, we should regard 

 it as an expression of deceit, as which it would be 

 more offensive than that which is in accordance with 

 nature. But the general structure of the baboons 

 does not impress us with the notion of a carnivorous 

 animal, or one which habitually kills for its food. It is 

 ferocity without a purpose, analogous to that of a man 

 who is always offended and snarling without cause ; 

 and who, though far from the most dangerous, is 

 certainly the most disagreeable of the whole race. 

 We admire power, even destructive power, when the 

 object of it is consistent with the expression ; and if 

 the lion and the eagle had the expression of the lamb 

 and the pigeon, they would be in truth ugly animals. 

 The same is the feeling that we have of the. converse, 

 as instanced in the baboons. Their expression is 

 mischievous ; but it indicates mischief in which there 

 is no meaning, because there appears to be no neces- 

 sity for it in the economy of the animals. They have 

 it ; yet it is not " their vocation," not in any way es- 

 sential to the finding of their food, or the performance 

 of any office which appears to be necessary in their 

 economy. Offensive as this expression is, it is per- 

 haps the one which, more than any thing else, led to 

 the ancient comparison of the quadrumana with man. 

 The species which must have been best known to the 

 Greeks and Romans, perhaps the only one with which 

 they were familiar, and certainly the one which was 

 dissected by Galen, and from which he inferred, by 

 comparison, many points in human anatomy, was the 

 magot or Barbary ape ; which Cuvier classes with 

 the baboons, and which, though it has not all the 

 characters of the more typical species, has yet much 

 of the ferociously snarling expression. 



Those who seek for something correspondent in 

 man and the quadrumana, certainly find it more in 

 this expression of malignant and unmeaning ill-nature 

 than in any thing else ; and thus the most repulsive 

 of the baboons has really more of man in him 

 than the chimpansec or the orang-utan ; for, except 

 in the baboons and in bad men, we .may seek nature 

 in vain for the expression of purposeless malignity. 



And the parallel may be extended somewhat further. 

 The manners of the baboon are as offensive a/ his 

 expression is ferocious ; and, as is the case with the 

 man of ferocious expression, the offensive manners 

 appear to have as little necessary foundation in 

 nature as the disagreeable expression. The baboon is 

 thus one of the most anomalous of animals. He does 

 not appear fitted for any particular region or place ; 

 and he has an expression and habit which we find 

 nothing in his circumstances or mode of life, which, 

 according to the experience which we have of other 

 animals, should call forth or justify that expression or 

 those actions. 



But we are not to suppose that this correspondence 

 between certain parts of the expression and conduct 

 of the baboons and those of human beings of a pe- 

 culiar temperament have any analogy in nature, any 

 more than there is an analogy of nature between the 

 forms of apes and the form of man. That which we 

 find in the baboon is not depravity or corruption 

 arising from bad conduct, bad company, or any of the 

 demoralising causes which act upon man. It is part 

 of the nature of the animal, and must be in some way 

 necessary to the existence and comfort of that animal ; 

 and, offensive as from our ignorance it appears to us, 

 there is not the least doubt that, if we could discover 

 its cause, we should find that it is as necessary and 

 perfect as any thing else we meet with in nature. In 

 their native localities the baboons must be exposed 

 to the attacks of the medium-sized cats, which are 

 powerful animals, much swifter on the ground than 

 the baboons, and not much less expert in climbing ; 

 for though the baboons can get along very nimbly 

 among the stiff branches, they cannot leap from tree 

 to tree, or swing themselves on the smaller twigs to 

 which their feline foes dare not pursue them. That 

 their fierceness is meant as a protection against their 

 foes has not been fully established, because the at- 

 tacks of these larger cats upon their prey are not 

 events of every-day observation ; but the probability 

 is that it answers some such purpose. We shall now 

 notice the subdivisions of the baboons. 



The first subdivision, and the one which has the 

 baboon character and ferocity the least marked, is 

 that to which the name of MACACO ( Macacus) is ap- 

 plied, though different systematists have divided it 

 differently into genera, but all the species do not get 

 the popular name of baboons, or indeed when the 

 common principles of nomenclature deserve it. 



The animals of this subdivision, though very much 

 circumscribed in latitude, have a very remarkable 

 range of longitude, extending from the western parts 

 of northern Africa, or even from Europe (for one of 

 the species is found in the south of Spain, at least on 

 the top of the rock of Gibraltar, and is the only qua- 

 drumanous animal found in a wild state in Europe) 

 to China, and the extreme eastern isles of Asia. 

 They are not continuous, however, in all that range, 

 because if a line is laid across the map it will be 

 found that much of what it falls upon is desert, or at 

 least destitute of trees, and as such not adapted for 

 these animals, and that the parts so adapted are but 

 a few points. The species too, at least those which 

 can with any propriety be considered baboons, are 

 not many ; and lying far apart in their localities, they 

 differ much in their appearance. They are not so 

 equatorial in their locality as the apes, or the more 

 formidable and ferocious baboons ; and it does 

 not appeal* that they are found in the southern 



