THE EGRET. 



Generic Characters, 

 Lower jaw furnifhed with pouches for the reception of food. 

 Polteriors (generally) naked. 

 Tail ftraight, and longer than the body. 



Synonims. 



Simia aygulAj Linn. Syji. 39. Ojbeck's Voy. i. 151. 



L' Aigrette, de Buffon, xiv. 190. tab. xxi. Schreber, 129. tab. xxii. 



Egret, Pennant Hifl. Quad, vol. i. p. 207. 



THESE animals are extremely ugly ; they have a habit of grinding their 

 teeth and wrinkling up their faces : they are inhabitants of Africa, and live 

 in great numbers together. They make dreadful havoc in cultivated fields, 

 by fcratching up a great deal more corn than they can poffibly confume. 

 When in a flate of confinement they are docile, and fometimes remarkably 

 gentle. M. Audebert obferves, that he once faw a female of this defcription, 

 tending and careffing her little one in a granary : the light was very 

 interefting, and the owner of the granary aiferted, that he had confined the 

 creature, for feveral years, in a cage. 



The face of the Egret is of a livid colour, and the hair that furrounds it 

 is grey, mixed with a little white and black, which, (landing out in different 

 directions, gives the animal a very extraordinary appearance: the whole of 

 the body is grey, and the belly is of a whitilh colour : the length of the tail 

 is eighteen inches. 



Pennant informs us, that thefe animals will fawn on men, dogs, and their 

 own fpecies; that, on feeing a Monkey of another kind, they greet him with 

 a variety of grimaces ; and that, when a large company of them lleep, they 

 put their heads together, and make a continual noife during the night. 



