Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/56

30 thief paid for his limitation in calculating power with his life, as he fell a victim to the farmer's rifle.

Both the specimens I kept were females, one old and the other young, and as time went on our intimacy ripened, and they seemed to become to me more and more like poor relations. The young one I bought from a Boer, who had shot the mother and captured the offspring. It was only after some six months' acquaintance that this animal would be at all friendly, and the explanation I take to be that from wearing a long beard I was not altogether unlike a Boer, and the young Baboon had formed both a distrust and hatred for the murderer of its mother and the capturer of itself. This seemed the more probable, because it always trusted my son, and was friendly with the Kafirs; whilst, though I never punished it in any way, and bribed it continually with sweets and fruits, it still remained a slave to first impressions. This animal used to sleep with a large bull-terrier bitch in its kennel, winding its arms round the body of the dog, which unfortunately died during the Transvaal winter, and the young Baboon contracted a temporary asthma soon after sleeping alone.

I chained this little animal up outside my office window, the length of chain allowing her to sit when she pleased on the window-sill, which she constantly did, only separated from me as I sat at my desk by the glass; but the moment I went outside all good relations were at an end, and she showed terror and dislike if I approached within a distance of three feet. She perfectly understood the separating medium of the glass, which she never attempted to break. Even after six months there was still great distrust, and only the friendship of an armed truce.

Very different was the conduct of the other full-grown matron, who had been long in captivity before I received her as a present. This female, who rejoiced in the name of "Jack," possessed the greatest intelligence I ever met with in any animal not of our own genus. Unlike the younger one, she was friendly to all "whites," but had a perpetual feud with "coloured people," especially Kafirs, who as a rule gave her a wide berth, thus escaping bites, but receiving whenever possible bricks, stones, or other missiles, hurled with no little force and precision. In cold weather—such as winter nights—or when exposed to the full