A young specimen of the common Bengal monkey.
Not many years ago a well-known sportsman was shooting in Somaliland. On the other side of a rocky ravine was a troop of baboons of a species of which no examples were in the British Museum. Though he knew the danger, he was tempted to shoot and to secure a skin. At 200 yards he killed one dead, which the rest did not notice. Then he hit another and wounded it. The baboon screamed, and instantly the others sat up, saw the malefactor, and charged straight for him. Most fortunately, they had to scramble down the ravine and up again, by which time the sportsman and his servant had put such a distance between them, making "very good time over the flat," that the baboons contented themselves by barking defiance at them when they reached the level ground.
Photo by A. S. Rudland & Sons.
RHESUS MONKEY AND SOOTY MANGABEY.
The sooty mangabey (to the right of the picture) is gentle and companionable, but petulant and active.
They are the only mammals which thoroughly understand combination for defence as well as attack. But Brehm, the German traveller, gives a charming story of genuine courage and self-sacrifice shown by one. His hunting dogs gave chase to a troop which was retreating to some cliffs, and cut off a very young one, which ran up on to a rock, only just out of reach of the dogs. An old male baboon saw this, and came alone to the rescue. Slowly and deliberately he descended, crossed the open space, and stamping his hands on the ground, showing his teeth, and backed by the furious barks of the rest of the baboons, he disconcerted and cowed these savage dogs, climbed on to the rock, picked up the baby, and carried him back safely. If the dogs had attacked the old patriarch, his tribe would probably have helped him. Burchell, the naturalist after whom Burchell's zebra is named, let his dogs chase a troop. The baboons turned on them, killed one on the spot by biting through the great blood-vessels of the neck, and laid bare the ribs of another. The Cape Dutch in the Old Colony would rather let their dogs bait a lion than a troop of baboons. The rescue of the infant chacma which Brehm saw himself is a remarkable, and indeed the most incontestable, instance of the exhibition of courage and self-sacrifice by a male animal.
Photo by L. Medland, F.Z.S., North Finchley.
GREY-CHEEKED MANGABEY.