10 BIOGRAPHY. 



mountain called Ape's Hill, on the coast of Barbary ; and 

 that, by some tremendous convulsion of nature, a channel 

 had been made between them, and had thus allowed the 

 vast Atlantic Ocean to mix its waves with those of 

 the Mediterranean Sea. 



" If apes had been on Gibraltar when the sudden shock 

 occurred, these unlucky mimickers of man would have 

 seen their late intercourse witl^ Africa quite at an end. A 

 rolling ocean, deep and dangerous, would have convinced 

 them that there would never again be a highway overland 

 from Europe into Africa at the Straits of Gibraltar. 



"^ow as long as trees were allowed to grow on the 

 Eock of Gibraltar, these prisoner-apes would have been 

 ])retty well off. But, in the lapse of time and change of 

 circumstances, forced by ' necessity's supreme command,' for 

 want of trees, they would be obliged to take to the ground 

 on all-fours, and to adopt a very different kind of life 

 fiom that which they had hitherto pursued." 



The animal here mentioned is the Barbary Ape, or 

 Magot, a species of Macacque. At Gibraltar it feeds 

 largely on the scorpions that have their habitations under 

 the loose stones. I do not think that Waterton's sugges- 

 tion as to its altered habits is carried out by facts, for the 

 magot is quite as much at home among rocks or among 

 trees, as are the great baboons of Southern Africa. I 

 have seen a number of magots in a large cage, or 

 rather, apartment, in the open air. They were supplied 

 with rock-work and trees, and of the two seemed to 

 prefer the former. Their colours harmonised so completely 

 with that of the rough stones on which they sat, that 

 many persons passed the cage, thinking it to be untenanted, 

 while five or six magots were seated among the rocks, and 

 almost as motionless as the stones themselves. 



Generally, the Gibraltar magots keep themselves so 



