Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.
FIG. 197. Magot.
FIG. 198. Large Baboon.
This ape ([fig. 197.]) is two feet and a half, or three feet high, in its erect posture; but the female is not so large as the male. It prefers to walk on all four rather than on two feet. When it sleeps it is almost always sitting; supporting itself on two very prominent callosities on its posteriors; and the anus being placed higher, his body is more inclined when sitting than that of man. It differs from the pithecos; first, in the form of its snout, which is thick and long, like that of a dog; whereas, the pithecos has a flat visage. Secondly, in having long canine teeth. Thirdly, its nails are neither so flat nor so round; and, fourthly, because it is larger, and of a more sullen and untractable disposition.
There are also varieties to be met with in this species. We have seen some of different sizes, with various coloured hair, and more or less bushy. Even the five animals of which Prosper Alpinus has given us the figures and descriptions, under the name of cynocephali, seem to be all magots, differing only in size, and some other characters too slight to form distinct species. The magot seems to be dispersed over every warm climate in the Old Continent, and is found in Tartary, Arabia, Ethiopia, Malabar, Barbary, Mauritania, and as far as the Cape of Good Hope.