u8 



APES AND MONKEYS. 



species of the group which is not Asiatic. The magot inhabits, indeed, the north- 

 west corner of Africa, in the districts of Morocco and Algeria, being especially 

 common in the latter country in the neighbourhood of the city of Constantine. 

 It is also found across the Straits in Gibraltar, and some of the neighbouring 

 parts of Spain, but whether indigenous there, or introduced from the opposite 



THE MAGOT (\ nat. size). 



continent by human agency, does not appear to be clearly made out. The wide 

 separation of this macaque from its Asiatic congeners suggests that it is the direct 

 descendant from those extinct species which are found in the later geological 

 deposits of various parts of Europe, at a date when we know that the genus was 

 already in existence in India. 



That the magot is the Pithecus of the ancients there is not a doubt, as the 

 description given by Aristotle is enough to identify it. This species was indeed, in 

 all probability, the only tailless member of the order with which the ancients were 

 acquainted. It was, moreover, the animal from which the ancient Greeks obtained 

 such knowledge as they possessed of human anatomy; and an account of its 



