[Illustration: BABOON OR DOG-HEADED MONKEYS.]
The Baboons and the Mandrills are sometimes placed in separate classes
by Naturalists because of the difference in the length of their tails,
but they both belong to the same family—the Cynocephali, which is
derived from the words cyon, cynos, a dog, and cephale, a head, and
means dog-headed.
In these creatures the teeth and the cheek-pouches, which are similar to
those of the majority of the Monkey family, are combined with a long
nose and the nostrils situated like those of a dog. The Baboons have
longer tails than the Mandrills, and although their forms are very
clumsy, they climb trees easily, and even display much agility when they
are sporting among the branches; yet they seldom select the forest as
their place of residence. They are found almost exclusively in Africa,
although a single species is found in Asia.
The Baboon was known to the ancient Egyptians, on whose monuments it
often appears, and as it symbolized the god Thoth, the inventor of the
alphabet, it was held in great veneration in those days of long ago, and
numerous mummies of this animal have been found in Egyptian burial
places.
The Baboon prefers to walk on all fours like a quadruped, and instead of
living in forests, they choose the mountainous districts, and rocky
places covered with bushes and brush wood. They live in troops, and each
troop takes possession of a certain district, which they defend against
all intruders. If men approach, the alarm is instantly raised, the whole
troop gather together, and endeavor both by their cries and their
actions to drive them away. And if not successful in this they will
attack such visitors with sticks, or throw stones and other missiles at
them. Even firearms will not frighten the Baboons and a troop will not
retreat until many are left dead upon the ground.
If a traveler is unfortunate enough to encounter one of these troops
when alone, he is soon surrounded by numbers of the infuriated beasts,
and literally torn to pieces. Rather than encounter such a death an
Englishman once killed himself by leaping from a cliff, where he had
been hemmed in by a multitude of these ferocious creatures.
Their canine teeth are almost as formidable as those of the Tiger, yet
they are said to live entirely on vegetable diet, and to be so fond of
fruit that they sometimes seriously destroy orchards and gardens.
It is usually during the night that they make their thieving excursions,
and they take great care to ensure the success of their stealing. When
the troop arrives at the scene of action, it divides into three
companies, one enters the orchard or garden, while those of the second
division place themselves as sentinels to give warning of the approach
of danger, while a third division establishes itself in the rear and
forms a long line extending from the other troops to their home in a
neighboring mountain. When all these arrangements are completed, those
who have broken into the orchard or garden throw the produce of their
thieving to the nearest sentinels, who pass it on to those behind, and
thus in a very short time it is handed along the line and stored in a
safe place at the end, until there has been enough secured to make a
feast for the entire troop. While thus engaged, if one of the sentinels
raises a cry of alarm, the whole body will scamper off to their hiding
places.