Chapter I: The Gelada Baboon. Theropithecus Gelada

_Macacus gelada_, Rüpp., Neue Wirbelth. Säugeth., p. 5, pl. 2 (1835);
Schl., Mus. Pays Bas, vii., p. 107 (1876).

_Theropithecus gelada_, Is. Geoffr., Arch. Mus., ii., p. 576 (1841).

_Theropithecus senex_, Schimp. et Puch., Rev. et Mag. de Zool., 1857, p.
51.

_Gelada rüppellii_, Gray, Cat. Monkeys Brit. Mus., p. 33 (1870); Garrod,
P. Z. S., 1879, p. 451.

CHARACTERS.--MALE.--Body large and massive; head oblong; face produced, rounded, and nude below the superciliary ridge; nose long and depressed in its middle region, but elevated at {277}the tip upon the deep upper lip; head crested, with long hair, rising from the superciliary ridge, and descending to a long and mantle-like mane on the back of the neck and shoulders, where the hair is longest, down to the loins behind, and as far as the elbow joints in front; whiskers very long, directed backwards over the ears, and downwards from the corners of the mouth; no beard; chin nude; a patch on the chest and one on the throat naked, separated from each other by a haired bar 1½ inches broad; tail long, round, erect for its basal third, then falling straight down as in other Baboons, and terminating in a long thick tuft.

Face, hands, feet and callosities deep black; nude chest-spaces florid; hair of whiskers, neck-portion of mane, sides, arms, and lower margins of the mantle-like mane dark sooty chocolate-brown; breast, chest, shoulders, fore-arms, hind quarters and tail (except the terminal tuft) black; tail-tuft brownish-black, with a few white hairs; abdomen paler brown than the hair generally, though still dark; hair bordering the nude chest-spaces iron-grey from the presence of numerous short grey and white hairs; nipples close together on the lower nude chest-space; nails of hands longer than those of the feet. Length of the body, 29 inches; of tail, 24¾ inches; to tip of terminal tuft, 32 inches.

Skull shorter than in _Cynocephalus_; canine teeth very large; posterior lower molars with a large fifth cusp; upper molars with a large front talon; cranial crests strongly developed; nasal bones high, narrow, separate, and not fused together.

The affinities of _T. gelada_ are more with _Cercopithecus_ than with _Cynocephalus_, and still less with _Macacus_.

{278}YOUNG MALE.--Similar to the adult, but the mane shorter, and more curly; and the brown colour, wherever it occurs in the male, is lighter in colour.

FEMALE.--Coloured like the young male, but smaller than the adult male, and with shorter hair, darker at the tips; hair longest between the shoulders; loins paler than in the male; nude chest and throat-spaces united into one, which is carunculated along its borders, and without white hairs along the margins; callosities carunculated.

DISTRIBUTION.--Southern Abyssinia; in the provinces of Heremat and Godjan.

HABITS.--The habits of the "Gelada," as it is named by the natives of its own country, are similar to those of the Baboons (_Cynocephalus_). They live in large companies, and when full-grown--the males especially--are very ferocious, pugnacious, and dangerous. It is a common habit of these animals to roll down stones from the rocky cliffs amid which they live, upon any approaching animal--the Arabian Baboon being an especial object of their animosity. Their food consists of all sorts of fruits, as well as grass, and the cultivated crops of the natives. They are chiefly found in barren rocky regions, ascending the mountains to an altitude of from 7,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea.