140 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



and milk, raw eggs, and raw meat chopped up into very 

 minute fragments. 



Several varieties of the animal have been described 

 from different parts of Africa. 



CHAPTER XIV 

 APES AND MONKEYS 



APES, monkeys, baboons and lemurs belong to the 

 order known as Primates. All the African members of 

 this order are arboreal in habit, and therefore are found 

 only in more or less forested country. Their food is 

 composed of roots, fruits, and herbs of various kinds, 

 while a great many species are also insectivorous. Their 

 eyesight and hearing are acute, but the faculty of scent 

 is little, if at all, superior to that of human beings, and they 

 do not rely upon it to warn them of approaching danger. 



The apes, in their intelligence, size, and certain physical 

 characteristics, including lack of any tail, approach more 

 nearly to man than any other of the lower animals. Of 

 the family, the Chimpanzees display the most striking 

 human resemblances in this structure, and in their mental 

 powers. These apes are found in the forest regions of 

 equatorial west and central Africa, where they consort 

 in small family parties.* 



The Gorilla is the largest of the group, the male standing 

 sometimes over six feet in height. Its range extends 

 only through a limited portion of the forest zone of west 

 equatorial Africa. 



Both the above species are able to walk in a more or 

 less upright position. 



The family of the monkeys and baboons, in Africa, 

 south of the Sahara, is made up of the Guerezas, the 



