THE E ABO ON. 
65 
the kites. Tie cover was again taken off tie pot, and tie shrieking and straggling prisoner 
thrust in to the boiling water in spite of its beak and claws. The lid was then replaced, and 
the baboon resumed its post of sentry with the placid ease that belongs to a conscience void of 
offence. 
The baboons, when in their native fastnesses, are under a very complete system rf disci- 
pline, and enforce its code upon each other most strictly. Considering the daring inroads 
which these creatures constantly make upon their neighbors’ property, and the daily dangers 
BABOONS . — Cyn ocephalus babuija. 
to which all gregarious animals are necessarily subject, the most wary vigilance and the most 
implicit obedience are necessary for the safety of the whole community. 
The acknowledged chiefs of the association are easily recognized by the heavy mass of 
hair that falls over their shoulders, and which, when thick and gray with age, is a natural 
uniform that cannot be wrongly assumed or mistaken. 
These leaders have a mode of communicating their orders to their subordinates, and they 
again to those placed under them, in a curiously-varied language of intonations. Short and 
sharp barks, prolonged howls, sudden screams, quick jabberings, and even gestures of limbs 
and person, are all used with singular rapidity, and repeated from one to the other. There 
was a system of military telegraphing, by means of attitudes and sounds, which was invented 
some time ago, and which really might have been copied from the baboons, so much do their 
natural tactics resemble the artificial inventions of mankind. 
It must be remembered that, clever as are these animals, their ingenuity is quite equalled, 
and even surpassed, by many of the animal kingdom which are placed much lower in its 
system. Therefore, although these examples of their sagacity are thus placed on record, it is 
