Page:Natural History (1848).djvu/19

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MONKEYS.
9

the wind-pipe, and capable of being inflated; it gives the power of uttering terrific cries. In the more man-like of the genera, the tail is altogether wanting, but in several others this member is of considerable length: the former are commonly known as Apes, the latter as Monkeys; while another natural division, under the name of Baboons, the most brutal of the family, possess a tail varying in length, but usually short, and in some reduced to a mere tubercle. In no case, in the Family before us, has the tail any prehensile or grasping power.

Genus Troglodytes. (Geoff.)

This, the most man-like genus of the Simiadæ, is distinguished by having the ears large and spreading; throat-sacs small; fore-hands reaching to the knee; callosities small; thumbs of hind hands always furnished with nails, thirteen pairs of ribs; no cheek-pouches; and no tail.

The only species yet known is the Chimpanzee (Troglodytes niger, Geoff.), which inhabits Western Africa, from the River Gambia to the limits of Benguela, a tract including about twelve degrees of latitude on each side of the equator. Its height, when full-grown, seems to be at least five feet; some of the older writers say six or seven, which, from what we know of the Sumatran Orang, seems not improbable; the skin of a specimen in the Museum of the Zoological Society measures about four feet. It is clothed with long black hair, harsh and coarse, but somewhat glossy; thinly scattered on the breast and belly, as well as on the limbs: that on the fore-arm points upwards. The hair of the head is divided in the