56 
THE MAMMALS OF EGYPT. 
examiiiGd provGS that th© individuals arG subjGct to considGrablG variation as to tho sizG 
to which thoy attain. Tho terminal cusp of the last lower molar is more or less in a 
line with the outer cusps, but, at the same time, median in position. It is occasionally 
broken up into a crenulated surface and is, in such cases, not well marked. 
Sir H. H. Johnston ^ had scarcely left the coast on his journey to Kilima-njaro when 
he encountered this species, which he found especially abundant in the inhabited 
region known as Chaga, at the foot of the mountain, the troops numbered from 14 to 
20, of all ages and of both sexes. Bohm ^ describes a baboon met with on his journey 
to J anganyika as frequenting the cultivated lands, on which it made extensive raids 
during the harvest-season, feeding liberally on the maize- and millet-fields, from which 
it was with difficulty driven off by the natives specially set to watch the crops. The 
baboons were so little molested by the natives that they showed scant fear of man, and 
were known to rob women of the food that they had gathered or were carrying to 
market, and were known to pursue young people with threatening attitudes, grunting 
and showing their teeth. When one of their number was shot, the others did not 
leave the spot where the companion had fallen; and Johnston records that when he had 
killed one of a troop which had been rifling a maize-plantation, the other baboons 
surrounded their dead companion, snarling defiantly, but were driven off on the 
arrival of some men. Bohm also states that the wounded were protected by the 
old males, who, when danger threatened, exposed themselves in the front, and if 
the troop happened to be among the trees, challenged the enemy by stepping 
forward from time to time on the more prominent branches. The same traveller 
describes the voice of the old male as deeper and stronger than that of the young, 
and compared it to an abrupt barking sound. When in terror a troop will scream 
and screech piercingly ; but in retreating they do so slowly, leaping from time to 
time on to low trees, now and then standing up against the trunks to look at their 
pursuers. Fischer says that this species is a dexterous climber of high trees, and that 
it leaps down from them when it makes away from any danger. The same author 
describes this species as one of the plagues of the natives living on the coast, where it 
frequents the mangrove-thickets, and can be seen in numbers in the morning and 
evening, an old male leading each troop. They also wander through the high grass 
to the corn-fields, but they do not confine themselves to grain and grass, as they are 
known to seize straying fowls and small animals. In Kipini, Fischer had frequent 
opportunities to observe how they lay in wait in holes and thorn-bushes for dwarf 
species of antelope, on which they would spring; but these little creatures were wary 
as a rule, and made off as soon as they observed the baboons appearing. They also 
seize even large antelopes, such as the Bushbuck i^Tragelaphus roualeyni, Gumming); 
1 Proc. Zool. Soc. 1885, p. 215. ^ ^ gansibar zum Tangauyika,’ Herman Schalow, Leipsig, 1888. 
