Photo by A. S. Rudland & Sons.
BONNET MONKEY, AND ARABIAN BABOON (ON THE RIGHT).
The chacmas have for relations a number of other baboons in the rocky parts of the African Continent, most of which have almost the same habits, and are not very different in appearance. Among them is the Gelada Baboon, a species very common in the rocky highlands of Abyssinia; another is the Anubis Baboon of the West Coast of Africa. The latter is numerous round the Portuguese settlement of Angola. Whether the so-called Common Baboon of the menageries is a separate species or only the young of some one of the above-mentioned is not very clear. But about another variety there can be no doubt. It has been separated from the rest since the days of the Pharaohs. It does not differ in habits from the other baboons, but inhabits the rocky parts of the Nile Valley. It appears in Egyptian mythology under the name of Thoth, and is constantly seen in the sculptures and hieroglyphs.
Photo by L. Medland F.Z.S.] [North Finchley.
RHESUS MONKEYS.
This photograph is particularly interesting. It was actually taken by another monkey, which pressed the button of Mr. Medland's camera.
Equally strong and far more repulsive are the two baboons of West Africa—the Drill and the Mandrill. As young specimens of these beasts are the only ones at all easily caught, and these nearly always die when cutting their second teeth when in captivity, large adult mandrills are seldom seen in Europe. They grow to a great size, and are probably the most hideous of all beasts. The frightful nose, high cheekbones, and pig-like eyes are the basis of the horrible heads of devils and goblins which Albert Dürer and other German or Dutch mediæval painters sometimes put on canvas. Add to the figure the misplaced bright colours—cobalt-blue on the cheeks, which are scarred, as if by a rake, with scarlet furrows, and scarlet on the buttocks—and it will be admitted that nature has invested this massive, powerful, and ferocious baboon with a repulsiveness equalling in completeness the extremes of grace and beauty manifested in the roe-deer or the bird of paradise.
