BABOONS. 



SS 



danger. That the consciousness of strength 

 will lead to many an act of insolent outrage 

 can be easily understood; but that the large 

 baboons do not give way even to the leopard 

 and do not flee before man himself when not 

 bearing firearms, can hardly be reckoned as 

 a fault. 



The Black Ape (C. {Cyiiopithccus) niger), 

 fig. lo, with slender limbs, very dark woolly fur, 

 and rudimentary tail, we have felt compelled 

 to depict as representing the macaque type. 

 It inhabits the easternmost islands of the 

 Eastern Archipelago, Celebes, the Moluccas, 

 and the Philippines, is regarded as easily 

 tamed, but is not known in a state of 

 freedom. 



Among the mountains of Eastern Central 

 Africa there lives a group of large baboons, 

 which have been denominated the mantled 

 baboons, because the males in particular 

 have a luxuriant covering of hair a foot long, 

 forming a perruque and a mantle for the 

 shoulders, reaching down to the elbow. 

 These large and powerful monkeys appear 

 to some extent to have the highlands of 

 Abyssinia as the central point of their distri- 

 bution. The larger species, the Gelada (C 

 geladd), inhabits here only a zone of 6500 

 -10,000 feet above sea-level, while the 

 Arabian Baboon, which, among the ancient 

 Egyptians, played the same role as the 

 hunuman and the boonder still do among 

 the Hindus, is far more widely spread and 

 descends even to the valleys. Formerly 

 it was a native of Egypt, where it is now 

 quite extirpated, but it still extends to the 

 mountains of Arabia. Both species have 

 a terminal tuft on the tail, and otherwise 

 they show only slight divergences. The 

 Arabian baboon (C hamadryas), which when 

 old is of a silver-gray colour, but in youth 

 is darker, has nostrils at the end of the snout 

 and large bright-red ischial callosities. Its 

 figure is frequently represented on the Egyp- 

 tian monuments, and it has lent its head to 

 some of the ancient Egyptian gods. 



The larger Gelada, of which we furnish an 

 illustration, fig. 11, is met with at more con- 

 siderable altitudes, has the nostrils situated 

 far back, two naked spots on the breast, and 

 small dark-gray ischial callosities. The naked 

 parts are blackish. There is a brown and 

 a black variety, the latter, which the Abys- 

 sinians distinguish by the name " tokur 



Fig. 10. — The Black Ape {Cynocephalm niger). 



sinjera," and which is characterized especially 

 by having claw-like nails on the fingers, 

 confined to the greatest elevations. In quite 

 recent times sixteen specimens of this variety 

 were brought alive to Europe by their cap- 

 turer, J. Essler of Hungary, and as many 

 perished during the journey. Even the old 

 captive animals were tolerably well tamed 

 at the end of half a year. They never 

 exhibited the bestial brutality and readiness 

 to bite which are displayed by the hama- 

 dryas. The male, which is considerably 

 larger than the female, defended the latter 

 and one young one against imprudent ap- 

 proaches by sound blows with the hand. 

 When they thought themselves alone the 



