Thoth Baboon. 



Cynocephalus Thoth, Ogilby, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1843, p. 11. 



The following of the species is given by Mr. Ogilby : — 



" This Abyssinian species, which was reported to have been brought from Bombay, but which had no 

 doubt been carried thither on board some vessel trading to the Ked Sea, possesses a higher degree of interest 

 than attaches to any other Cynocephal. With the exception of C. hamadryas, it is the only known species in 

 that part of Africa, and must consequently have been the animal which we find so frequently figured among 

 the hieroglyphics, and which was worshipped by the Egyptians under the name of Thoth. I have shown else- 

 where (Nat. Hist, of Monkeys, &c, i. 431) that the Sacred Baboon of the Egyptians was not the C. hamadryas, 

 as supposed by Ehrenberg; and though, from the mistake above alluded to, I was at that time inclined to 

 identify it with C. anubis, there can now be no reasonable doubt that the animal which played so important a 

 part in the mythology of that remarkable people, and of whose worship the city of Hermopolis was the principal 

 seat, must have been the species at present under consideration. If this conjecture be well-founded, it follows 

 also that the names cynocephalus, sphinx, &c, so often employed by Greek and Roman writers, must have 

 referred to the same animal, at least originally ; but as modern zoologists have applied all these names in a 

 definite sense, I propose to distinguish the new species by the equally appropriate designation of " Thoth " which 

 it bore among the ancient Egyptians. 



" The individual from which this description was taken is an old male of large size, and, like the rest of 

 his congeners, of a morose intractable disposition. The face is broad and of a dirty livid flesh-colour, lighter 

 along the centre and ridge of the nose, and somewhat browner on the cheeks and muzzle ; the cheek-bones are 

 protuberant, the rostrum truncated, and the extremity of the nose reaching, but not surpassing, the plane of the 

 upper lip and teeth. The hair of the fore-quarters is longer and thicker than on the rest of the body, though 

 it does not form so dense or copious a mane as in C. hamadryas. The colour of the upper and outer parts of 

 the body may be described as dark olive-green, and that of the lower and interior as light yellowish green ; 

 the breast, throat and under part of the chin are silvery grey ; the lower parts of the whiskers are of the same 

 colour, but they acquire a yellowish green shade as they approach and become intermixed with the hair of the 

 head ; the ears and palms of the hands are naked, and of a dark brown colour ; the callosities very large and 

 flesh-coloured, and the naked parts of the hips on each side of the callosities of a deep purple or violet-brown ; 

 the scrotum is brown, and the sheath of the penis flesh-coloured. The tail is of medium length, without a 

 terminal tuft, and carried in the arched manner common to the rest of the genus. The hind surfaces of the 

 legs and thighs are furnished with long hair of a yellowish brown shade ; the hands are of the same colour as 

 the body, but the hind fingers are covered with longish grey hairs, and this character, together with the dark 

 purple colour of the naked hips and brown scrotum, will always be sufficient to distinguish the present 

 species from C. anubis and C. sphinx, in both of which the naked parts of the buttocks are of a brilliant blood- 

 red, and the scrotum pale flesh-colour. In colour indeed C. Thoth approaches more nearly to C. sphinx than to 

 C. anubis ; it has the same light silvery grey colour on the whiskers and under part of the body, but the upper 

 colours are more obscure; the bright yellowish green is replaced by sordid dunnish brown, and the proportions 

 of the two animals are entirely different, the long slender limbs and body of the sphinx contrasting strongly 

 with the massive thick-set form of the present species." 



