48 Div. 1. YEETEBE ATE ANBIALS.— MAMMALIA. Class 3. 



extent the abliorreiice with which we are apt to regard them. It has lately been discovered that they chiefly 

 inhabit barren stony places, where they subsist, for the most part, upon scorpions ; to procure which they employ 

 their hands to lift up the numerous loose stones, under most of which one or more of these creatures commonly 

 lie concealed; their stings they extract with dexterity. Accordingly, we find that the Baboons are expressly 

 modified for traversing the ground on all-fours, and are furnished with efficient hands ; their eyes are peculiarly 

 placed, directed downwards along the visage. AVant of space necessarily prevents us, generally, from noticing 

 these highly interesting relations, aflforded by the special modifications of structure in reference to habit: but 

 we avail ourselves of the present instance (which is little known*) to call attention to them. 



"With the Baboons, the series of Catarrhini (Geof.) terminates ; and we may observe that the 

 Simiaclce fall under three principal divisions. First, that of the Apes, (comprising the Chimpanzee, 

 Ourangs, and Gibbons), tail-less genera, which have the liver divided as in Man, an appendage 

 to the coecum, &c. Second, the slender-limbed Monkej-s, with sacculated stomachs and longer 

 intestines (or the Doucs, and most probably the Colobins), all of which have exceedingly long tails. 

 Third, those with shorter and stouter limbs, a simple stomach, and tail vai7ing in length from a 

 tubercle to longer than the body. These last (or the true IMonkeys, Macaques, Magots, and 

 Baboons), are all partly insectivorous ; and the habit mentioned of the Baboons, of turning over stones 

 in quest of prey, apphes perhaps more or less to all of them, but particularly to the Magot and some 

 Monkeys. In the two first divisions, the coat consists of only one sort of hair ; in the last of two 

 sorts, the longer and coarser of which is mostly aunulated with two colours. It is remarkable that 

 none of the genera are common to Asia and Africa (one Baboon only extending to Arabia), and, until 

 very recently, no remains of any had occurred in a fossil state ; but the jaw of one said to be 

 allied to the Gibbons has lately been detected in a tertiary deposit, at Sanson, France ; and some bones, 

 adjudged to be those of Macaques, in the tertiary ranges of northern India.] 



The Monkey-like Animals of the New Would, 



[Platyrrhini, Geo/.], — • 



Have four griuders more than the others, thirty-six in all ; the tail [with very few excep- 

 tions] long ; no cheek-pouches ; the buttocks hairy and without callosities ; nostrils opening 

 on the sides of the nose, and not underneath ; [the thumbs of the anterior hands no longer 

 opposablef.] All the great Quadrumana of America pertain to this division. :|: Their large in- 

 testines are less inflated, and their ca;cum longer and more slender than in the preceding 

 divisions. 



The tails of some of them are prehensile, that is to say, their extremity can twist round a 

 body with sufficient force to seize it as with a hand.§ Such have been designated Sapajous 

 {Cebiis, Erxl.) 



At their head may be placed the 



Stentors {Mi/cetcs, Illigor), — 



Or IloxvUng Monkejjs \_Alouaitcs of the French], which are distinguished by a pyramidal head, the 

 upper jaw of which descends much below the cranium, while tlic l)ranches of the lower one ascend 

 very high, for tlie pui'posc of lodging a bony drum, formed by a vesicular inflation of the hyoid bone, 

 which communicates witli tiicir larynx, and imparts to their voice prodigious volume and a most 

 frightful sound. Hence the appellations which have been bestowed on tiiem. The prehensile portion 

 of their tail is naked beneath. 



[Tlie Rufous Stentor (Sim. scniculus, Bufl"., Supp. vii. 25), the Ursine Stentor (Htcntor tiniiiits, Geoff.), and 

 at least five other species, arc now tolerably established. Tliey are shaggy animals, averaging the size of a Fox, 

 of (lilTercnt shades of brown or blackish, the females of some being dill'erently coloured from the males; such is 

 M. barbaliis, .Spix, pi. 32, of which the male is black and bearded, the female and young pale yellowish-grey. || 

 They are of an indolent and social disposition, and grave deportment ; utter their hideous yells and howling by 

 night ; subsist on fruits and foliage, and are deemed good eating.] 



• For the Information communicated, «c arc in(icl)lcd to Dr. A. 

 Smilli, the conductor of the Soulli Africiiii expedition from liic Cape 

 colony. — Kd, 



t They are but slijrhlly so in m.iny of llic Simiailj-.—KD. 



t Dy this is meant, that the MarmoBcts and T.imarins (0«ijri(ij of 

 our author) arc excluded from tlic generalization.— Eb. 



§ This organ possessing in an eminent dcffrec the sense of touch, 

 where the clinractcr i.s most developed. — Kn. 



II Cuvier aecordinj;ly suii^ests, inadvertently, that the M. StramUiCUS 

 Spi.v, pi. 31, which i.s entirely of a straw-yellow colour, may be thu 

 female of sonic other; Spix, however, figures a male,— Kd. 



