action is with mammals, birds and reptiles; retaining what I have to
say in regard to man for a future chapter. Mr. Sutton, the intelligent
keeper in the Zoological Gardens, carefully observed for me the
Chimpanzee and Orang; and he states that when they are suddenly
frightened, as by a thunderstorm, or when they are made angry, as by
being teased, their hair becomes erect. I saw a chimpanzee who was
alarmed at the sight of a black coalheaver, and the hair rose all over
his body; he made little starts forward as if to attack the man,
without any real intention of doing so, but with the hope, as the
keeper remarked, of frightening him. The Gorilla, when enraged, is
described by Mr. Ford[409] as having his crest of hair erect and
projecting forward, his nostrils dilated, and his under lip thrown
down; at the same time uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it
would seem, to terrify his antagonists. I saw the hair on the Anubis
baboon, when angered bristling along the back, from the neck to the
loins, but not on the rump or other parts of the body. I took a stuffed
snake into the monkey-house, and the hair on several of the species
instantly became erect; especially on their tails, as I particularly
noticed with the _Cereopithecus nictitans_. Brehm states[410] that the
_Midas dipus_ (belonging to the American division) when excited erects
its mane, in order, as he adds, to make itself as frightful as
possible.
With the Carnivora the erection of the hair seems to be almost
universal, often accompanied by threatening movements, the uncovering
of the teeth and the utterance of savage growls. In the Herpestes, I
have seen the hair on end over nearly the whole body, including the
tail; and the dorsal crest is erected in a conspicuous manner by the
Hyaena and Proteles. The enraged lion erects his mane. The bristling of
the hair along the neck and back of the dog, and over the whole body of
the cat, especially on the tail, is familiar to every one. With the cat
it apparently occurs only under fear; with the dog, under anger and
fear; but not, as far as I have observed, under abject fear, as when a
dog is going to be flogged by a severe gamekeeper. If, however, the dog
shows fight, as sometimes happens, up goes his hair. I have often
noticed that the hair of a dog is particularly liable to rise, if he is
half angry and half afraid, as on beholding some object only
indistinctly seen in the dusk.
I have been assured by a veterinary surgeon that he has often seen the
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