Part 65

Skull shorter than in Cynocephalus; canine teeth very large; posterior lower molars with a large fifth cusp; upper molars with a large front talon; cranial crests strongly developed; nasal bones high, narrow, separate, and not fused together.

The affinities of T. gelada are more with Cercopithecus than with Cynocephalus, and still less with Macacus.

{278}YOUNG MALE.--Similar to the adult, but the mane shorter, and more curly; and the brown colour, wherever it occurs in the male, is lighter in colour.

FEMALE.--Coloured like the young male, but smaller than the adult male, and with shorter hair, darker at the tips; hair longest between the shoulders; loins paler than in the male; nude chest and throat-spaces united into one, which is carunculated along its borders, and without white hairs along the margins; callosities carunculated.

DISTRIBUTION.--Southern Abyssinia; in the provinces of Heremat and Godjan.

HABITS.--The habits of the "Gelada," as it is named by the natives of its own country, are similar to those of the Baboons (Cynocephalus). They live in large companies, and when full-grown--the males especially--are very ferocious, pugnacious, and dangerous. It is a common habit of these animals to roll down stones from the rocky cliffs amid which they live, upon any approaching animal--the Arabian Baboon being an especial object of their animosity. Their food consists of all sorts of fruits, as well as grass, and the cultivated crops of the natives. They are chiefly found in barren rocky regions, ascending the mountains to an altitude of from 7,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea.

II. THE DUSKY GELADA. THEROPITHECUS OBSCURUS.

Theropithecus obscurus, Heuglin, Act. Acad. Leop., xxx., Nachtrag, p. 10 (1863); Schl., Mus. Pays Bas, vii., p. 107 (1876).

? Theropithecus senex, Schimper et Puch., Rev. Zool., 1857, p. 244.

{279}CHARACTERS.--Nearly allied to T. gelada, but distinguished by its darker colour, the flesh-coloured ring round the eyes, and the two naked spots on the chest at the base of the neck, surrounded by white hairs, extending to the inner side of the arm.

Face naked, the chin thinly haired, the nose-pad situated behind the blunt and broad end of the muzzle; eyes small, set close together, deep sunk beneath the prominent overhanging frontal ridges; ears small; sides of the head entirely covered with woolly hair; mane long, soft, and thick. Length of body, 53 inches; tail, 26 inches.

Face black, but with a broad flesh-coloured ring round each eye; scanty hairs on the chin white; top of head and back dark brown; mane on fore-neck and shoulders, arms, and hind part of the hands pure black; sides of head and neck, rump, and tail dirty ochre; naked spots on breast dark flesh-coloured, more vivid in passion; breast and inner side of fore-arm, and middle of chest white; rest of under surface pale brown. Callosities bluish-grey.

FEMALE AND YOUNG.--Almost uniform fulvous, but the mane less marked.

DISTRIBUTION.--North-east Africa; on the eastern boundary of Abyssinia, near the sources of the Takazze river, on the confines of the Galla country. Dr. Blanford observed it also near Magdala.

HABITS.--This large and "stately" Baboon, known to the natives as "Tokur-Sinjero" (or Black Baboon), lives in large troops in the high mountains of Abyssinia, at an altitude of from 6,000 to 10,000 feet. It is seldom seen among trees, but generally in open plains, or in inaccessible rocky cliffs, from which it hurls stones on anyone who dares to approach. {280}During the night these Baboons hide together in holes in the rocks, whence, on the return of the morning sun, they emerge and sit warming themselves, before starting on their marauding expeditions in the cultivated fields, or in the vegetation which clothes the sides of the deep valleys, where they feed largely on the leaves of the trees. Their disposition is, among themselves, harmless. As a rule two to six year old males lead with grave strides a herd of twenty to thirty females and young, the latter now playing with each other, and scampering about the troop, now carried by their mothers, and sometimes pinched and boxed on the ears by them. As soon as, but not before, the leader has assured himself of any danger, he utters a gentle bark, to which the whole troop responds and retreats back into safety among the rocks. The old males then stand on their hind-feet barking and displaying to the intruder their long white teeth. On their marauding expeditions, or when in flight, they do not usually exhibit great haste, the whole troop generally going in single file with an old Sultan bringing up the rear. Often several troops mingle together during the day, but at nightfall each returns to its own headquarters.

Their cry is a sharp bark, but that of the old males is very hoarse. One of their great enemies is the Lämmergeier or Bearded Vulture.

These observations have been extracted from the account given of this species by von Heuglin, who discovered it during his Abyssinian expedition in 1853.

THE MALAYAN BABOONS. GENUS CYNOPITHECUS.

Cynopithecus, Is. Geoffr., in Belanger's Voyage, p. 66 (1834).

This genus has been constituted to include the single species {281}described below; the characters of the genus being thus, perforce, the same as those of the species.

THE CELEBEAN BLACK BABOON. CYNOPITHECUS NIGER.

Cynocephalus niger, Desm., Mamm., p. 534 (1820).

Macacus niger, Bennett, Gard, and Menag. Zool. Soc., p. 189, with figure (1830); Schl., Mus. Pays Bas, vii., p. 119 (1876).

Cynopithecus niger, Is. Geoffr., in Bélanger's Voyage, p. 66 (1834); Lesson, Quadrum., p. 101 (1840); Gray, Cat. Monkeys Brit. Mus., p. 33 (1870).

Papio niger et P. nigrescens, Temm., Possess. Néerl. Ind., iii., p. 111 (1847).

Cynopithecus niger, vel nigrescens, Wagner in Schreb., Säugeth. Suppl., v., p. 61, tab. 6 (1855).

Cynopithecus nigrescens, Wallace, Malay Arch., i., p. 432 (1869).

CHARACTERS.--About the size of a Spaniel; head oblong; face very elongated, naked; neck, hands, and feet also naked; nose triangular, the sides erect, flattened behind nearly to the eyes, not extending to the end of the muzzle, but leaving a broad upper lip; nostrils, with a long and broad partition between them, directed downwards and outwards--a character seen in the genus Macacus, and distinguishing this genus from the true Baboons (Cynocephalus); cheek-swellings parallel to the nose, distinct, but not conspicuously large; supra-orbital ridges very conspicuous; cheek-pouches large; tail rudimentary, reduced to a fleshy tubercle, one inch long, and hardly visible. Length, 24 inches.