The Animal World, A Book of Natural History: Young Folks' Treasury (Volume V)Wood, Theodore
General
The Animal World, A Book of Natural History: Young Folks' Treasury (Volume V)
Wood, Theodore
Animals -- Juvenile literature
Yet it has once or twice been tamed. In the Natural History Museum, at
South Kensington, London, is the skin of a mandrill which lived for some
years in that city in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. His
name was "Jerry," and he was so quiet and contented that he was
generally known as "Happy Jerry." He learned to smoke a pipe. He was
very fond of a glass of beer. He even used to sit at table for his
meals, and to eat from a plate by means of a knife and fork. And he
became so famous that he was actually taken down to Windsor to appear
before King George the Fourth!
There is another baboon called the drill, which is not unlike the
mandrill in many respects, but the swellings on its face are not nearly
as large, and they remain black all through its life. It is a much
smaller animal, too, and looks, on the whole, very much like a mandrill
while it is quite young.
THE GELADA
Almost as odd-looking as the mandrill, though in quite a different way,
is the gelada, which is found in Abyssinia. Perhaps we may compare it to
a black poodle with a very long and thick mane upon its neck and
shoulders. When the animal sits upright this mane entirely covers the
upper part of its shoulders, so that a gelada looks very much as if it
were wearing a coachman's mantle of long fur.
In some parts of Abyssinia geladas are very numerous, living among the
mountains in bands of two or three hundred. Like the chacmas in South
Africa, they are very mischievous in the orchards and plantations,
always making their raids by night. It is said that on one occasion they
actually stopped no less a personage than a Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,
and prevented him from proceeding on his journey for several hours.
The story is, that as the Duke was traveling in Abyssinia his road lay
through a narrow pass, overhung with rocky cliffs; that one of his
attendants, catching sight of a number of geladas upon the rocks above,
fired at them; that the angry baboons at once began to roll down great
stones upon the path below, and that before they could be driven off
they succeeded in completely blocking the road, so that the Duke's
carriage could not be moved until the stones had been cleared away.
Whether this story is altogether true or not, we cannot say. But there
can be no doubt that geladas are very warlike animals. Not only will
they attack human beings who interfere with them, they also attack other
baboons. When they are raiding an orchard, for instance, they sometimes
meet with a band of Arabian baboons, which have come there for the same
purpose as themselves. A fierce battle then takes place. First of all
the geladas try to roll down stones upon their rivals. Then they rush
down and attack them with the utmost fury, and very soon the
orchard is filled with maddened baboons, tumbling and rolling over one
another, biting and tearing and scratching each other, and shrieking
with furious rage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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