MAMMALS 55 



approximated eyes are deeply sunk beneath them. The 

 canine teeth are of immense size and the maxillary hones are 

 developed into a pair of oval prominences rising on each side 

 of the elongated snout. These prominences are covered by 

 naked skin which is marked with longitudinal ridges and 

 furrows. The colour of this skin is an intense blue, the 

 furrows being of a darker tint, while the central line and end 

 of the nose are of a bright scarlet. The tail is extremely short 

 and turned upwards, and the buttocks as well as the upper 

 part of the insides of the thighs are destitute of hair and of 

 a crimson colour, which, depending not upon pigment but 

 upon injection of the superficial blood-vessels, varies in 

 intensity according to the condition of the animal, increasing 

 under excitement, fading during sickness, and disappearing 

 after death. 1 



It is only to fully adult males that this description applies. 

 The female is of much smaller size and more slender, and 

 though the general tone of the hairy part of the body is 

 the same, the prominences, furrows, and colouring of the face 

 are much less marked. In the females the end of the nose 

 becomes a little red during menstruation. 2 The young males 

 have black faces. At the age of three years (when the canine 

 teeth begin to develop) the blue of the cheeks begins to 

 appear, but it is not until they are about five years old, 

 when they cut their canines, that they acquire the character- 

 istic red of the end of the nose. 



All the authors who have described the Mandrill refer in 

 emphatic terms to the extraordinary ferocity and insatiable 

 lust of the adult male. Observations on the animal in its 

 wild state amid its native surroundings are very scanty. It 

 inhabits western tropical Africa, and the specimens brought 

 to Europe have been shipped on the coast of the Gulf of 



1 Flower and Lydekker, Mammals Living and Extinct, 1891. 



- E. G. St. Hilaire et Fred. Cuvier, Hist. Nat. des Mammiferes, 1819-35. 



