BARBARY APE 7 



certain species inhabiting the Nile valley which were as important to the ancient 

 inhabitants of that tract as they are to their present-day successors. It must be 

 added that since the North African fauna agrees in the main with that of the rest 

 of the Mediterranean province, the animals selected for notice will, to a great 

 extent, be those chiefly or exclusively characteristic of the African portion of 

 that area. 



The greater part of northern Africa is chiefly a mountainous and plateau 

 country; the main exceptions to this character being the valley of the Nile and 

 the coast plains of Tripoli and Algeria. Much of the area is, indeed, more or 

 less bare and desert-like ; the desert conditions attaining their maximum develop- 

 ment in the Sahara, which commences to the southward of the chain of the 

 Atlas, and extends to the 15th parallel of north latitude, with a breadth in 

 some parts of more than a thousand miles. This great sterile area, interspersed 

 locally with oases, forms a plateau with a general elevation of probably not 

 more than between 1000 and 1500 feet above sea-level. Its present barren char- 

 acter may not improbably be attributed to the destruction of primeval forests, 

 the former existence of which is attested by the silicified trunks of trees met 

 with in various localities. What caused the destruction at the comparatively 

 early epoch when these fossil trees flourished is not definitely known, but it is 

 possible that wild camels, remains of which occur in the superficial formations of 

 Algeria, may have been the chief agents. It may be noted that the sea around 

 Malta and Sicily is comparatively shallow, and that another bank stretches out 

 from the coast of Tripoli, leaving a narrow channel of not more than 250 fathoms 

 between the two shallow areas. An elevation of some 1500 feet would accord- 

 ingly have been sufficient to unite, Africa with Italy, while a similar elevation 

 would have connected Morocco and Spain, thus leaving in former times two 

 immense lakes to represent what is now the Mediterranean. 



The only true North African monkey is the so-called Barbary 



Barbary Ape. J . J . J 



ape {Macacus muus), which belongs to a genus otherwise exclusively 



Asiatic in its distribution ; this particular species differing from its relatives by 

 the complete absence of a tail, — an appendage which attains a considerable length 

 in several of the Asiatic macaques. The Barbary ape is a native of the north- 

 western corner of Africa, where it is specially common in the environs of 

 Constantine. It is, however, also found on Gibraltar, but whether introduced, or 

 whether a survivor from the time when that rock was connected by a land-bridge 

 with Africa, is a moot point. 



This ape, known to the French as the magot, and to the ancients as the 

 pithecus, was probably the only tailless member of its tribe with which the latter 

 were acquainted. Aristotle described it unmistakably, while Galen wrote a 

 description of its anatomy to which the ancients owed such knowledge as they 

 possessed of the structure of the human skeleton. In size it is about equal to an 

 average dog, and in colour is light yellowish brown above and on the outer sides 

 of the limbs. The head and a stripe on the cheeks are somewhat darker, while the 

 under-parts are dull yellowish white, and the bare callosities flesh-coloured. A 

 small fold of skin, unconnected with the backbone, is the sole vestige of the tail. 



So common were these apes in the forests of the Atlas near the sea at the 



