One kind, the Babiana sulphurea, greatly resembles in its flower the common Gladiolus of our gardens, but it has round, stiff-coated seeds. The sword-shaped leaves arise from an underground bulb-like root, which buds near its point so as to rise in the ground to the surface, and the flowers are very handsome. The plants flourish in the soil of the great plains of the Cape of Good Hope, where they are exposed for two or three months to rain, but where afterwards and for the rest of the year the earth becomes so dry that hardly a vestige of vegetation remains. The Baboons, when they roamed over these plains formerly, used to dig up the root and eat it voraciously.
The Baboons are more brute-like than the rest of the Monkeys in appearance, and therefore have not that singular resemblance to man which many of the others possess either generally or in their faces. Their dog-shaped head, a long muzzle, and a curious fulness on each side of the long nose, distinguish them at once from any other Quadrumana. With one or two exceptions the nostrils are quite at the end of the muzzle, and are separated by a narrow piece of gristle; they rather project beyond the nostril, and can be placed close to the ground as the Baboon runs along to follow or track a scent. Their eyes are close together, and are deeply set, their ears are moderately large, and their neck is rather long, and as their common position is squatting on the hinder quarters like a Dog, the long muzzle is kept straight out, or occasionally is hung down over the chest. They have a short body, which seems compressed at the sides, and the shoulders are wide, the chest being capacious. As they run very much like Dogs, the hind-quarters are strong, and the hinder limbs longer than the front ones, and have a decided heel and strong muscles. They trot and canter, but rarely bound or jump over the ground, and they scramble and climb up rocks with the aid of the power of prehension, which is great even in the hinder extremities, the thumb being strong but short. When standing on all-fours, the shoulders are high, and the body slopes slightly to the tail, which is stuck high up, and some have short and others long tails.
They have the cheek-pouches, and the curious callosities on their stern, which sometimes are very large and vividly coloured; and their hair is many-coloured, being long or short according to the species. The tail is curved upwards close to its origin, and then it droops downwards when the Baboon is quiet in mind and body; but when excited, it sticks out and is flourished about with great vigour. Sometimes ended with a tuft, in some kinds it is not, and in one or two of the great Dog-headed there is no tail, or only a miserable rudiment of it. In spite of their brutal looks—for the faces of some are swollen out, or rather the side of the nose, and coloured and ridged in a marvellously ugly manner—they are very interesting, on account of their habits, cleverness, sociability amongst themselves, and their courage. Usually very amiable and full of fun when young, they afford much amusement when kept well and treated with kindness. They like to be petted, and will present their backs to be scratched, and may be taught to beg for food, to hold things, and to play endless tricks. This “jolly” disposition is seen amongst the wild youngsters, who are ever on the watch for an occurrence of mischief and practical joking, the sedate behaviour of their elders affording opportunities for endless mummeries and impudences. What can be more tempting to a young and light-hearted Cynocephalus than to disturb the solemn thoughts of the patriarch of the troop? There sits the elder of elders on his haunches, his tail outspread behind, the long nose slightly stuck up, and the fine long mane, lion-like, encircling the throat and covering the shoulders. Perched upon a block of stone, higher than the rest, he is an object of reverential awe to the elders of the band. But often enough some restless little Ape, after squatting on a stone and mimicking the Nestor of the tribe, forgets himself, and after much dodging here and there, and running to and fro, ventures to pull that sacred tail as only Monkeys pull. All the rage of Thoth is, however, slumbering in that quiet old male. His cares and watchings have triumphed over any gaiety he ever had. Making no allowances for the follies of youth, he pounces without wavering on the offender. Squeals, squeaks, and howls follow the cuffs, pinches, and bites, and the little wretch makes off to the bosom of his mother, who snarls, grins, and shows her teeth, using language awful in monkeydom, and mutterings not loud but deep. The mothers in the immediate neighbourhood sympathise and proclaim their indignation with low grunts and much pantomime suggestive of reprisals, but they all know better than to do anything of the sort, as they have experienced the weight of the paternal arm themselves so often.
With age, any amiability of disposition is replaced by ferocity and greedy brutality, and is particularly increased in captivity, as the temper is usually severely tried by the tricks and teasings of the visitors.
The Cynocephali, although they are placed after the different genera already described in the scheme of classification, have some very singular structural resemblances with the higher Apes and with man, besides those which render them more like the quadrupeds, such as the flesh-eaters or Carnivora. Several of these will be noticed in describing some of the kinds of Baboons; but it may be stated here that the bend in the back observed in the Chimpanzee and other Apes, which resembles that of a very young child more than that of a man, does not exist in these Dog-headed Apes. Their bones bend in and the upper part of the back bends out, as in man, so that there is a more or less graceful double curve. This is evident when any Baboon places himself up against the wires of his cage to be scratched—a treat under all circumstances. Moreover, the Baboon has another human resemblance, which is also observable in the Orangs, but not in the Troglodytes. In man, if a line be drawn down the spine and another drawn down the sacrum bone (that which unites the haunch-bones together behind), they will not meet and form a straight line, but will cut each other, so as to produce a decided angle. This is slightly seen in the Orangs, but it is very evident indeed in the Baboons. On the contrary, there is no angle formed in the Gorilla and Chimpanzee. Again, in man, the sacrum bone is curved, the hollow of the bend looking forwards. This is the case in the Baboon and also in the Siamang; but the curvature is much less in the great Apes or Troglodytes; furthermore, this sacrum bone is relatively very broad in the Baboon.
Now, these are not simply anatomical curiosities, and they are really of some interest to the youngest naturalist who cares to try and puzzle out what these things really mean. Either they have a meaning or they have not. If they are freaks of Nature or the results of chance, then there is nothing more to be said; or if they are deeply connected with the method of life or the habits of the creatures, they may be said to have been given for a purpose. But the notions about chance and freaks belong to a bygone age, for Nature works neither by accident nor by impulses, but by law. So there must be some meaning in these things, and the key to their comprehension is the gradual change of form and of structure which has been undergone in the long ages during which one animal has become altered so as to depart greatly from the parent stock, and to assume what is called a new specific shape—to become a new kind. And in the new kind there are relics of the old form—pieces of bone here and there; muscles, tendons, or useless teeth, and such things, which are, as it were, part of the coat-of-arms to enable the genealogist to trace the history of the family.
In the Baboons there is a curious condition of the first bone of the neck (the atlas, or first vertebra, on which the head rests). It is a massive ring of bone, down the centre of which the great nerve (spinal cord) of the spine passes, and it becomes stouter with age, and the central hole is all the smaller. It has a small spinous process, to which there is a muscular attachment, which tends to keep up the heavy skull and long nose. A good short back-bone, not over pliant, is necessary to the Baboon, and a provision is made in order to produce this; for the bodies of the vertebræ are found to be larger and longer as they are further down the spine. This is what occurs in man and in the Gibbons, but it is only slightly noticed in the higher Apes—the Troglodytes and Orangs. The Baboon may be said to have sometimes only eighteen back and loin vertebræ, and twelve or thirteen are rib-bearing, and the spines of these bones are strong and often expanded or flattened at their ends; moreover, the last spines project forwards and the others backwards. All this arrangement is especially ape-and animal-like, and refers to the strengthening of the muscles used in moving on all-fours. There is of course a tail to be considered, and in the shortest there are from five to eight bones, or modified vertebræ, and whether short or long, the muscles of the tail are all to be met with at its root.
Such clever animals ought to have well-formed brains, and yet not so elaborately constructed as those of the Anthropomorpha, whose movements are more varied, and who can walk erect for a longer or shorter time. It is found that the brain of the Baboon, although less complicated, or rather less perfectly formed, than that of the Chimpanzee and Orang, is singularly like those of the Guenons and Macaques in the surface markings and convolutions, and, in fact, the brains of these animals agree in all essential points. The principal convolutions and fissures which are noticed in the Troglodytes exist, but the external perpendicular fissure is strongly marked, and all the little brain is covered by the cerebrum, or brain proper.
BRAIN OF THE BABOON.