20 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

absence of the peasants in harvest time, placing sentiaels
on the look out, to apprise them of danger, while they visit
the houses and take possession of all the food they can find.
They are cunning and powerful, and formidable in combat,
but, greedy in habit, they eat to excess, and when gorged to
satiety fall an easy prey, to their enemies. In their wild state
they feed on berries and bulbous roots, but when proximity
to civilisation gives them wider opportunity, they show their
appreciation of a more varied menu. Among the more
familiar species of the baboon are the Chackma, the Drill,
the Mandrili, the Anubis, the Babouin, and the Sphinx, all of
which belong to the West of Africa.

The The Arabian baboon is an animal with a
Arabien history. It was worshipped by the Egyptians,
Baboon. who embalmed its body after death and set

apart portions of their cemeteries for its use. Sacred to
Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes, the God of letters, the baboon
sometimes represents that deity in Egyptian sculptures, where’
it is usually figured in a sitting posture, the attitude in
which its body was generally embalmed. The baboon was
also held as emblematic of the Moon, and honoured sym-
bolically in other connections. It is commonly represented
in judgment scenes of the dead with a pair of scales in
front of it, Thoth being supposed to exercise important
duties in the final judgment of men. The baboon was
held especially sacred at Hermopolis. According to Sir
J. G. Wilkinson the Egyptians trained baboons to useful
offices, making them torch-bearers at their feasts and festivals.

The Like others of the monkey tribes the baboon
Imitative shows an extraordinary faculty for imitation.
Faculty a 4 ri Dei At 2
ofthe Captain Browne in his “Characteristics of Ani-
Baboon. mals” says: “The following circumstance is truly

characteristic of the imitative powers of the baboon:—
The army of Alexander the Great marched in complete battle-
array into a country inhabited by great numbers of baboons,