250 OTHER MONKEYS 



dragged out half the feathers, administered a 

 severe bite on the back of the officer's neck, and 

 regained the tree in the twinkhng of an eye. The 

 alarmed guardsman made a precipitate rush into 

 the roadway, scarcely comprehending what had 

 befallen, and, as anybody with a knowledge of 

 baboons well knows, retreat before them is a 

 certain precursor of further trouble. But what 

 filled me with the greatest regret was the sadden- 

 ing spectacle of the moulted plume, which had 

 been shorn of a great amount of its former 

 jauntiness. 



Now I do not think for a moment that the 

 baboon acted out of malice ; it was tickled, I 

 suppose, by the appearance of the dancing cock's 

 feathers, and being sufficiently tame to have lost 

 all dread of humanity, thought it would per- 

 petrate a practical joke. Personally I am con- 

 vinced that monkeys have as keen an appreciation 

 of practical jokes as we have — in fact few who 

 have watched them will be unaware of their love 

 of leaping with lightning spring on and off some 

 unconscious, until startled, native's head, and 

 regaining their tree or box with a grimace of en- 

 joyment which reminds one of that of a small 

 underbred boy. 



There are in Zambezia, in addition to the 

 baboons, two or three types of monkeys which 

 we may refer to as the grivet, Sykes' monkey, 

 and that very handsome type the Samango. 



The Grivets are perhaps the most familiar of 

 the three I have mentioned above. This is the 

 small, grey, blackfaced animal, with a faintly 



