THE MANE BILL. 
155 
are shown, their beautiful white colour contrasting with the strange medley of tints around 
them. On the body the hair is very bristly, but the hands and feet are naked, and as if to 
add to the many peculiarities of the Mandrill, they are small in relation to the vigorous-looking 
limbs and short chest. 
So curiously decorated a brute living just outside the civilisation of the Egyptians, Greeks, 
and Homans, was sure to attract notice, especially as they were brought into Europe by the 
African merchants. Aristotle appears to have been struck with the hog-like look of the head, 
and he called it by the name of Hog- Ape ( Cheer ojnthecics ), and all writers, from the earliest to the 
latest, have contributed opinions founded on very doubtful facts, to the detriment of its character. 
All the iniquities, abominations, and scandals that have been coupled with the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, 
and Orang-utan, are linked on fourfold to the character of the ill-favoured Mandrill, and this is 
decided to be quite correct by the natives of the Gold Coast and the inland regions, where it lives a 
most dreaded and independent life. 
There is no doubt that the Mandrill is extremely brutal in its adult age, and that the males are 
ferocious and disgusting, there being no particular choice as regards ugliness and oddity of decoration 
between their faces and stems, whose callosities are vast. But the young are not so, and probably 
the quieter tints of the female are associated with a gentler disposition. Both the young and 
the females have shorter muzzles than the adult males, and they have neither the great cheek- 
swellings nor the colouring of the face ; in fact, it is only when the great eye teeth are being cut 
by the males, as evidences of its age and powers, that the irregular decoration begins to be 
noticed. 
The question of the colouring and ornamentation of Monkeys will again be noticed in the summary 
at the close of the description of the Quad rum ana, and it is therefore only now necessary to remark 
that the most grotesque-looking and ferocious Mandrill is especially beautiful in the eyes of his partner, 
who, with humble colours and softened looks, admires her fractious spouse. His colours glow with 
love and flame under the influence of passion, and probably no more curious-looking piece of living 
polychrome was ever seen than “ Jerry,” at the Surrey Zoological Gardens, when he got in a rage after 
drinking gin and water. “Jerry ” was old and had gained all his ornaments, but had lost his levity, fur, 
and amiability. Broderip writes of him : “He liked the good things of Mandrill life, but would not put 
up with its troubles. lie was a glutton, and ferocious in the extreme. Most kindly he would receive 
your nuts, and at the same time, if possible, would scratch or pinch your fingers, and then snarl and grunt 
in senseless anger. He would sit in a little arm-chair, and would wrap himself up in a blanket, knowing 
what was coming, the bribe being either a cup of tea, which he took, as people used to say, 'quite like 
any Christian/ or, what was much nicer in his eyes, a glass of weak grog and a pipe. If he was disturbed 
in his enjoyment he was not pleasant, and if a shower of nuts came in upon his feast, especially if it 
occurred after the gin and water, he came out in his true colours. Cramming the nuts into his mouth, 
and stowing them away rapidly in his cheek - pouches, thus giving an unusual size to his jaws, he 
would howl and march about, snarling and grunting. His little eyes glared, his nose and cheeks 
became swollen, and their colours most vivid. His hair stood out, and he walked as it were on the 
very tips of his fingers and toes, presenting every now and then vermilion behind, which a 
distinguished French anatomist has said was not without elegance.” 
He was under the control of the keeper, who had, however, to take care that he was not bitten 
unawares, for “ J erry ” was deceitful and treacherous in the extreme. It is said that he once dined in 
the presence of royalty, and that he was one of the many higher animals who were invited to dine by 
George the Fourth at Windsor when his Majesty required novel amusements and unusual excitement. 
Doubtless lie behaved himself, and contributed as much, and probably more, than any guest, to the 
royal enjoyment, and he appears to have enjoyed his hashed venison himself. There was no mistake 
about his enjoying his pipe, for he smoked as slowly and sedately as the gravest of his visitors at the 
Zoological Gardens. 
Had “ J erry ” been let alone, and had he remained in Africa at liberty, doubtless he would have 
in time headed his troops as patriarch and watchman, and would have led them in many an expedition 
against the fields of corn and the plantations of fruit-trees. For the Mandrills, in a state of nature, 
behave, much like the other Baboons, aney are, however, very fond of insects, large and small, 
