The female equals the male in point of size, but has no mane, being
uniformly covered with short hair of deep olive-brown slightly mixed
with green. She has a bearish look, and it is evident that the colours
of both sexes are admirably adapted to hide them when crawling amongst
rocks, or hiding away in holes and under ledges of stone. All have
a wild, grunting bark, almost approaching a roar; and they possess
laryngeal pouches or air sacs, which pass amongst the muscles of the
neck and reach even into the armpits. The pouch communicates by one
opening into the membrane above the larynx, and between its cartilage
and the so called hyoid bone at the base of the tongue, and they,
therefore, resemble those of the Semnopitheci.
Mansfield Parkyns gives some very interesting and explicit statements
about the intelligence and discipline of the Baboons. He says--“The
Monkeys, especially the Cynocephali, who are astonishingly clever
fellows, have their chiefs, whom they obey implicitly, and a regular
system of tactics in war, pillaging expeditions, robbing cornfields,
&c. These Monkey forays are managed with the utmost regularity and
precaution. A tribe coming down to feed from their village on the
mountain (usually a cleft in the face of some cliff) brings with it
all its members, male and female, old and young. Some--the elders of
the tribe distinguishable by the quantity of mane which covers their
shoulders, like a Lion’s--take the lead, peering cautiously over each
precipice before they descend, and climbing to the top of every rock
which may afford a better view of the road before them. Others have
their posts as scouts on the flanks or rear, and all fulfil their
duties with the utmost vigilance, calling out at times, apparently to
keep order among the motley pack, which forms the main body, or to give
notice of the approach of any real or imagined danger. Their tones of
voice on these occasions are so distinctly raised, that a person much
accustomed to watch their movements will at length fancy--and perhaps
with some truth--that he can understand their signals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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