Dr Babington was a many-sided man and wrote on a variety of subjects. His early familiarity with country life gave him a taste for natural history, especially botany and ornithology. He was also an authority on conchology. He was the author of the appendices on botany (in part) and ornithology in Potter's History and Antiquities of Charnwood Forest (1842); Mr Macaulay's Character of the Clergy ... considered (1849), a defence of the clergy of the 17th century, which received the approval of Mr Gladstone, against the strictures of Macaulay. He also brought out the editio princeps of the speeches of Hypereides Against Demosthenes (1850), On Behalf of Lycophron and Euxenippus (1853), and his Funeral Oration (1858). It was by his edition of these speeches from the papyri discovered at Thebes (Egypt) in 1847 and 1856 that Babington's fame as a Greek scholar was made. In 1855 he published an edition of Benefizio della Morte di Cristo, a remarkable book of the Reformation period, attributed to Paleario, of which nearly all the copies had been destroyed by the Inquisition. Babington's edition was a facsimile of the editio princeps published at Venice in 1543, with Introduction and French and English versions. He also edited the first two volumes of Higden's Polychronicon (1858) and Bishop Pecock's Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy (1860), undertaken at the request of the Master of the Rolls; Introductory Lecture on Archaeology (1865); Roman Antiquities found at Rougham [1872]; Catalogue of Birds of Suffolk (1884-1886); Flora of Suffolk (with W. M. Hind, 1889), and (1855, 1865) some inscriptions found in Crete by T. A. B. Spratt, the explorer of the island. In addition to contributing to various classical and scientific journals, he catalogued the classical MSS. in the University Library and the Greek and English coins in the Fitzwilliam museum.
BABIRUSA ("pig-deer"), the Malay name of the wild swine of Celebes and Buru, which has been adopted in zoology as the scientific designation of this remarkable animal (the only representative of its genus), in the form of Babirusa alfurus. The skin is nearly naked, and very rough and rugged. The total number of teeth is 34, with the formula i.2/3. c.1/1. p.2/3. m.3/3. The molars, and more especially the last, are smaller and simpler than in the pigs of the genus Sus, but the peculiarity of this genus is the extraordinary development of the canines, or tusks, of the male. These teeth are ever-growing, long, slender and curved, and without enamel. Those of the upper jaw are directed upwards from their bases, so that they never enter the mouth, but pierce the skin of the face, thus resembling horns rather than teeth; they curve backwards, downwards, and finally often forwards again, almost or quite touching the forehead. Dr A. R. Wallace remarks that "it is difficult to understand what can be the use of these horn-like teeth. Some of the old writers supposed that they served as hooks by which the creature could rest its head on a branch. But the way in which they usually diverge just over and in front of the eye has suggested the more probable idea, that they serve to guard these organs from thorns and spines while hunting for fallen fruits among the tangled thickets of rattans and other spiny plants. Even this, however, is not satisfactory, for the female, who must seek her food in the same way, does not possess them. I should be inclined to believe rather that these tusks were once useful, and were then worn down as fast as they grew, but that changed conditions of life have rendered them unnecessary, and they now develop into a monstrous form, just as the incisors of the beaver and rabbit will go on growing if the opposite teeth do not wear them away. In old animals they reach an enormous size, and are generally broken off as if by fighting." On this latter view we may regard the tusks of the male babirusa as examples of redundant development, analogous to that of the single pair of lower teeth in some of the beaked whales. Unlike ordinary wild pigs, the babirusa produces uniformly coloured young. (See Swine.)
(R. L.*)
BABOON (from the Fr. babuin, which is itself derived from Babon, the Egyptian deity to whom it was sacred), properly the designation of the long-muzzled, medium-tailed Egyptian monkey, scientifically known as Papio anubis; in a wider sense applied to all the members of the genus Papio (formerly known as Cynocephalus) now confined to Africa and Arabia, although in past times extending into India. Baboons are for the most part large terrestrial monkeys with short or medium-sized tails, and long naked dog-like muzzles, in the truncated extremity of which are pierced the nostrils. As a rule, they frequent barren rocky districts in large droves, and are exceedingly fierce and dangerous to approach. They have large cheek-pouches, large naked callosities, often brightly coloured, on the buttocks, and short thick limbs, adapted rather to walking than to climbing. Their diet includes practically everything eatable they can capture or kill. The typical representative of the genus is the yellow baboon (P. cynocephalus, or babuin), distinguished by its small size and grooved muzzle, and ranging from Abyssinia to the Zambezi. The above-mentioned anubis baboon, P. anubis (with the subspecies neumanni, pruinosus, heuglini and doguera), ranging from Egypt all through tropical Africa, together with P. sphinx, P. olivaceus, the Abyssinian P. lydekkeri, and the chacma, P. porcarius of the Cape, represent the subgenus Choeropithecus. The named Arabian baboon, P. hamadryas of North Africa and Arabia, dedicated by the ancient Egyptians to the god Thoth, and the South Arabian P. arabicus, typify Hamadryas; while the drill and mandrill of the west coast, P. leucophaeus and P. maimon, constitute the subgenus Maimon. The anubis baboons, as shown by the frescoes, were tamed by the ancient Egyptians and trained to pluck sycamore-figs from the trees. (See Primates; Chacma; Drill; Gelada and Mandrill).
(R. L.*)
BABRIUS, author of a collection of fables written in Greek. Practically nothing is known of him. He is supposed to have been a Roman, whose gentile name was possibly Valerius, living in the East, probably in Syria, where the fables seem first
to have gained popularity. The address to "a son of King Alexander" has caused much speculation, with the result that dates varying between the 3rd century B.C. and the 3rd century A.D. have been assigned to Babrius. The Alexander referred to may have been Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-235), who was fond of having literary men of all kinds about his court. "The son of Alexander" has further been identified with a certain Branchus mentioned in the fables, and it is suggested that Babrius may have been his tutor; probably, however, Branchus is a purely fictitious name. There is no mention of Babrius in ancient writers before the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., and his language and style seem to show that he belonged to that period. The first critic who made Babrius more than a mere name was Richard Bentley, in his Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop. In a careful examination of these prose Aesopian fables, which had been handed down in various collections from the time of Maximus Planudes, Bentley discovered traces of versification, and was able to extract a number of verses which he assigned to Babrius. Tyrwhitt (De Babrio, 1776) followed up the researches of Bentley, and for some time the efforts of scholars were directed towards reconstructing the metrical original of the prose fables. In 1842 M. Minas, a Greek, the discoverer of the Philosophoumena of Hippolytus, came upon a MS. of Babrius in the convent of St Laura on Mount Athos, now in the British Museum. This MS. contained 123 fables out of the supposed original number, 160. They are arranged alphabetically, but break off at the letter O. The fables are written in choliambic, i.e. limping or imperfect iambic verse, having a spondee as the last foot, a metre originally appropriated to satire. The style is extremely good, the expression being terse and pointed, the versification correct and elegant, and the construction of the stories is fully equal to that in the prose versions. The genuineness of this collection of the fables was generally admitted by scholars. In 1857 Minas professed to have discovered at Mount Athos another MS. containing 94 fables and a preface. As the monks refused to sell this MS., he made a copy of it, which was sold to the British Museum, and was published in 1859 by Sir G. Cornewall Lewis. This, however, was soon proved to be a forgery. Six more fables were brought to light by P. Knöll from a Vatican MS. (edited by A. Eberhard, Analecta Babriana, 1879).
Editions.—Boissonade (1844); Lachmann (1845); Schneider (1853); Eberhard (1876); Gitlbauer (1882); Rutherford (1883); Knöll, Fabularum Babrianarum Paraphrasis Bodleiana (1877); Feuillet (1890); Desrousseaux (1890); Passerat (1892); Croiset (1892); Crusius (1897). See also Mantels, Über die Fabeln des B. (1840); Crusius, De Babrii Aetate (1879); Ficus, De Babrii Vita (1889); J. Weiner, Quaestiones Babrianae (1891); Conington, Miscellaneous Writings, ii. 460-491; Marchiano, Babrio (1899); Fusci, Babrio (1901); Christoffersson, Studia de Fabulis Babrianis (1901). There are translations in English by Davies (1860) and in French by Levèque (1890), and in many other languages.
BABU, a native Indian clerk. The word is really a term of respect attached to a proper name, like "master" or "Mr," and Babu-ji is still used in many parts of India, meaning "sir"; but without the suffix the word itself is now generally used contemptuously as signifying a semi-literate native, with a mere veneer of modern education.