The pithecos, the magot, and the baboon, were known to the ancients: these animals are found in Asia Minor, Arabia, Upper Egypt and in all the northern parts of Africa. This passage of Marmol may, therefore, be applied to all the three; but it is clear it does not agree with the baboon, for it says these apes have no tails; and what makes me of opinion that it is not a magot, but a pithecos, is, that the former is not easily tamed, that it commonly produces only two young ones, and not four or five, like that of which Marmol speaks; and the latter, being also less, must produce a greater number at a time. Besides the pithecos, or pigmy, is more gentle and docile than the magot, or Barbary ape, which is scarcely ever thoroughly tamed. From these reasons I am convinced, that we must not apply this passage in the above author to the magot, but to the pithecos; and the same remark may be made to a passage of Rubruquis, who, in his discourse of the apes of Cathay, says, “that they nearly resemble the human form in every particular; that their height is not above a foot and a half, and their body covered all over with hair; that they live in holes; that the natives take them, by putting strong and inebriating liquors in the places they inhabit; that a number of them come together to drink liquors, at the same time making a cry which sounds like chinchin, whence they have obtained the appellation of chinchins; and that having intoxicated themselves they fall asleep, when the hunters easily surprise and carry them away.” These characters agree with the pithecos, and not at all with the Barbary ape. We have seen one of the latter alive, but never heard it pronounce the word chinchin. Besides it was above a foot and a half in height, and had a less resemblance to the human form than what this author asserts. We have the same reasons for applying Prosper Alpinus’s figure and description to the pithecos, rather than to the magot. He asserts, that the small ape without a tail, which he saw in Egypt, was sooner and more easily tamed, and more sagacious, lively, and diverting, than those of any other kind. This plainly distinguishes it from the magot, which is a filthy, sullen, vicious, untractable animal, and is never fully tamed, so that the characters given by Prosper Alpinus to his ape without a tail, do not agree in any respect with the Barbary ape, and can belong to no other animal than the pithecos.
Distinctive Characters of this Species.[O]
[O] This ape is about the size of a cat, of an olive brown above, and yellowish beneath. Pennant.
The pithecos, or pigmy, has no tail; his canine teeth are not proportionably larger than those of man; his face is flat, as are likewise his nails, which are rounded at the top like those of the human species; he walks erect, is about a foot and a half high, and of a gentle and tractable disposition. The ancients assert that the female is subject to a periodical emanation, and analogy leaves us no reason to doubt the fact.
THE GIBBON,[P] OR LONG-ARMED APE.
[P] Gibbon is the name by which Mr. Dupleix sent us this animal from the East Indies. I thought at first that this was an Indian word, but in looking over the nomenclature of the monkey tribe, I found in a note of Dalechamp’s upon Pliny, that Strabo has described the cephus by the word Keipon, from which, probably, Guibon, Gibbon, is derived. The passage of Pliny, with Dalechamp’s note, is as follows: "Pompeii magni, primum ludi ostenderunt ex Ethiopia, quas vocant cephos[Q] quadem pedes posteriores pedibus humanis & cruribus, priores manibus fuere similes; hoc animal postea Roma non vidit."
[Q] Cephos, Strabo, lib. xv. Keipon vocat esseque tradit facie satyro similem. Dal. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. viii. cap. 19. Nota. The cebus of the Greeks, the cephos of Pliny, which is pronounced kebus and kephus, might very possibly take its origin from koph, or kophin, which is the name of an ape in the Hebrew and Chaldean.