from a rock, had been picked up by one of the General’s aides-de-camp
and conducted to the same place. Nothing could be more striking than
the meeting of the pair. It was evidently the recognition of two old
friends or relatives. After contemplating each other for a few seconds,
they rushed into each other’s arms, then pushed each other a little
back, as if to make sure of the recognition, and, after a second mutual
examination, again clasped each other to their breasts.
[Illustration: WRIST-BONES OF THE MAGOT.]
The Magots, like all other Monkeys, are playful, affectionate, and
gentle, when young, to those whom they know, but they become cross
and vicious with age, and are generally greatly brutalised by their
masters--in fact, brought to the same level.
The absence of a tail makes the Magot look very baboonish, and this
appearance is not lost when the animal is dissected, and the skull is
examined. This is much less animal-looking than that of any one of the
Baboons, for it has not so much face, and the front of it is not so
disfigured with ridges and swellings. But the forehead is “villainous
low,” and there are well-marked ridges over the orbits, the skull not
rising behind them; and, as a matter of course, the brain case is flat,
the brain itself being low in height. The palate is narrow and long,
the face is flat, and the chin recedes. There is a capital set of
teeth, and the last grinders of the lower jaw (third molars) have their
fifth cusp, or tubercle, subdivided by two side-slits. In this, and in
the tail, which is excessively rudimentary, and only has three bones,
or vertebræ, the Magot departs from the usual form of the Macaques as a
genus. The sutures of the face and skull--that is to say, the joinings
between the bones--are soon obliterated in this animal; and it appears
to have the nose (nasal) bones joined in one at an early age, thus
resembling the Baboon and the carnivorous animals.
So many tricks are taught these clever Magots, and with such ease, that
one would expect to find a fairly-developed brain; but an examination
of one shows that it is hollowed beneath and narrow in front, whilst it
is broad behind, and extending well back, and covering the cerebellum.
Their special muscular structures resemble those of the other Inui, and
even their stump of a tail has the muscles which are common to those of
all Monkeys, but which in this instance are useless.
It will be noticed in the engraving of the wrist-bones that one
projects behind. This is the pea-shaped, or pisiform bone. It is small
and at the side of the wrist in man, but here it acts like it front
_heel_ bone. The length of the three middle long bones of the palm, or
metacarpals, is nearly equal; and this is an interesting point, as it
prevents the third finger from being so much the longest, and gives the
hand more or less a foot-like appearance.
THE WANDEROO.[59]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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