THE BLACK BABOON, \ 
159 
THE DRILL* 
Very little is known about the habits of another Baboon which is found on the coast of Guinea, and 
which is called the Drill. But it has been described, drawn, and stuffed frequently, and has been 
called Wood Baboon, the Cinereous Baboon, and the Yellow Baboon. The natives evidently con- 
found it with the young Mandrill; and as it is good-tempered when young they capture specimens 
for European menageries, where they are commonly to be seen. It appears to bo a modified Mandrill, 
like it in temper, and in its disagreeable adult qualities ; it has not, however, the grand coloration 
of the face, although the prominences of the cheek-bones are present. 
The Drill is smaller than the Mandrill, and has a short stumpy tail, occasionally two inches in length, 
covered with bristly hair, and ending in a brush. The colour of the hair is greener than that of the 
Mandrill, and underneath it is whiter and more silvery, whilst there is much light-brown hair on the 
upper parts of the limbs. It has "whiskers, which are brushed back, and a small orange-coloured beard ; 
moreover, the general tint of the skin beneath the hair is dark-blue, and the dinginess is relieved by 
scarlet callosities. 
The Baboons of Africa certainly lead very exceptional lives for Monkeys. They are the Apes of 
the rock and plain, and they would be out of place, on account of their method of moving and their 
general habits, in the dense tropical forests and swampy jungle. Their structure and general confor- 
mation are especially suited for their mode of life, and their courage, numbers, and instincts avail 
them against their common enemies — enemies which the contented dwellers in the woods, such as 
the Troglodytes, have not. Probably the Baboons are of vast antiquity, for the age of the African 
hills is great, even geologically speaking. The ti'ee disappears and the woods die away sooner or later, 
whilst the rock merely crumbles. Certainly the life of the Gorilla and other great Apes is inti- 
mately associated and connected with the life of the great trees and the duration of the vast "woods 
of Equatorial Africa. Destroy them, and the days of the Troglodytes would be at an end. But the 
rocks and hills are not so transient as the woods, and the Baboon will exist long after the higher Apes 
are extinct. Did he exist before them, and is he the link between them and a still less monkey-like 
animal 1 These are questions whose import has not escaped the active mind of one of the most 
eminent of anatomists, for Gratiolet believes in the descent of the Gorilla from the Baboon, and of 
course that the last preceded the first in time. 
The possibility of the descent of the Cynocepliali from a flesh-eater only rests upon the resemblance 
of some of the structures of the Mandrill, for instance, to those of some of the Carnivora. The dog- 
like appearance of the Baboon of course depends upon its long snout and jaws, but these are very 
different in their anatomy and construction from those of the Dog. The Cynocepliali (Baboons) are 
the lowest of the Old World Monkeys, but their next-of-kin in the downward classification are not now 
existing. They are more remote from the Lemurs, which come next below as Quadrumana, than they 
are from the great Apes. 
Hence the Baboon stands very much by himself. He may have possibly very distant relationship 
with some long-lost forms — creatures which lived geological ages since, and in which the ferocity of the 
Carnivora was combined with some of the structures of the Monkey ; or — and this is the more probable 
* — he may have once lived as a denizen of the forest, and the symbol of Thotli may really have merited 
the name of Hamadryas. The forest may have succumbed to changes in the physical geography, and 
the survivors of the slow extinction of the trees had to lead different lives and assume other habits. 
The Cercopitlieci (the Guenons) may have been the old forest Monkeys, and the Macaques, those hall 
Baboons, may be their modified descendants in a line which led to the true Baboon. If this be true, 
the dog-like characters of the Cynocepliali were given by nature during their progressive alterations 
from the condition of Tree Monkeys. 
THE BLACK BABOON.f 
There is a small Baboon which is very interesting to the student of the distribution of animals 
over the surface of the globe and to geologists. It is jet-black in colour, there being hardly a trace of 
dark-brown in its long hair, and hence it has been called the Black Baboon, or Cynocephalus niger . 
f Cynocephalus niger . 
Cynocephalus leucophceus. 
