In size the male mandrill may be compared to a short-bodied mastiff, while in strength and ferocity it has few equals, so that it is rightly dreaded by all the natives of West Africa. The female is a much smaller and much less powerful animal.
The mandrill, which is one of the shyest of all apes, inhabits the rocky parts of mountain forests in the Gold Coast, Guinea, and the adjacent districts of West Africa. Its food consists of fruits, bulbous plants, grass, and various other herbage, birds’ eggs, and all small animals that it can capture.
When captured young, the mandrill is sufficiently amiable, and for a time it remains tame and amenable; but, in the case of males at any rate, in the course of a few years its naturally evil disposition asserts itself, and it soon becomes one of the most vicious and disgusting brutes in creation. Indeed, there is not a good word to be said in its favour. In confinement the rage of the old males is something frightful, and it takes but little to excite them to this frenzied condition, when they shake the bars of their cages, and endeavour to rush upon the objects of their aversion. Little wonder that the West Coast natives dread the mandrill more than they do the lion.
Information is still required as to the habits of the mandrill in a state of nature; and it does not appear to be known whether these apes associate in large droves, after the manner of the ordinary dog-faced baboons, or whether they go about in pairs.
Here it may be mentioned that the name mandrill apparently signifies a man-like baboon, although there is little approximating to the human type in either the physiognomy or the general appearance of this hideous creature; the name drill being an old English word, of which one signification denotes an ape or baboon. By the Germans the mandrill is known as the forest-devil, which is perhaps a more appropriate designation; while by one of the older English naturalists it was termed the rib-faced ape, in allusion to the fluted, melon-shaped swellings on the sides of the muzzle.
The drill (M. leucophæus), which is likewise West African, but appears to have a more extensive range in that part of the continent, is a smaller animal than the mandrill, with only small swellings on the face of the old male, which is uniformly black. The bare patches on the rump are, however, bright red; but the tail, which is carried bent forwards over the rump in a similar manner, is hairy on all sides, instead of having its lower surface bare, as in the mandrill. The limbs, moreover, are longer and more slender than in the mandrill; and in fact in all these particulars the drill tends to form in some degree a connecting link between the former and more ordinary baboons.
THE WOLF
(Canis lupus)
AS the lion or the tiger forms the supreme development of the feline stock, so the wolf constitutes the culminating branch of the canine line. Each of these animals represents indeed the acme of perfection of which its particular type is capable; but in regard to specialisation the members of the cat tribe stand on a much higher plane than those of the dog family. In the cats we find the face much shortened and rounded, the number of cheek-teeth reduced both at the front and the back of the series, the pair of cutting-teeth in each jaw consisting almost entirely of scissor-like blades, and the claws retractile and protected by large horny sheaths.