Baboon
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Baboon. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a large, shaggy, fierce member of the monkey family. There are several species in the rocky parts of Abyssinia, Arabia, North Africa, and Cape Colony. The baboon has a prominent snout, a low forehead, and a profile to which the name "dog-faced" has been applied. It has a heavy mane. The face and the buttocks are bare, and are highly colored-blue, scarlet, and pink. The arms and legs are nearly of a length, permitting it to go on all fours, which it does with a galloping motion, making unexpected speed, especially in climbing among the rocks. The baboon feeds in flocks. It lives chiefly on fruits, roots, birds' eggs, and insects. It fills its large cheek pouch greedily with food before it begins to eat, in order that it may be able to carry away a supply in case of sudden alarm. A baboon has been seen to put eight eggs into its cheek-pouches at once; then take out the eggs, one by one, break the shell at the end, and deliberately suck their contents. The baboon is about the size of a mastiff. The visit of a troop of these animals is greatly dreaded by the African planter; for the baboon is voracious, destructive, and filthy beyond description. It is the most repulsive of the monkey family. It is strong, sullen, not easily tamed, and seems to have no redeeming quality. See Monkey
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a common name applied to a division of Old World quadrumana (apes and monkeys), comprehending the genera cynocephalus and papio. They have elongated abrupt muzzles like a dog, strong tusks, or canine teeth, usually short tails, cheek-pouches, small, opposing Hindu deep eyes, with large eyebrows, and proclaimed himself naked callosities on the buttocks. They of Hindustan. live on fruits and roots, eggs and in- BABOON sects. They include the chacma, drill, common baboon, and mandrill. The chacma, or pig-tailed baboon (cynoceph alus porcarius) is found in considerable numbers in parts of the south African colonies. The common baboon (C. babouin) inhabits a large part of Africa farther to the N. It is of a brownishyellow color, while the chacma is grayish black, or in parts black. The hamadryas (C. hamadryas) of Abyssinia is characterized by long hair, forming a sort of shoulder cape. The black baboon (C. niger) is found in Celebes.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The animal is the same; the classification and the attitude are not. Collier's 1921 list lumps the mandrill and drill in with the baboons and counts the "black baboon (C. niger)" of Celebes among them — mandrills and drills are now placed in their own genus, Mandrillus, and the Celebes animal is recognised as a crested macaque (Macaca nigra), not a baboon at all; true baboons are today grouped as five or six species of the genus Papio. Aiton's 1910 verdict that the baboon is "the most repulsive of the monkey family" with "no redeeming quality" has been overturned by exactly the sort of close observation it lacked: Robert Sapolsky's decades with wild troops in Kenya made baboons a model for how social rank drives stress hormones and disease, in monkeys and in people. Where the 1910 planter dreaded a raiding troop, the modern conflict is suburban — Cape Town's chacmas open car doors and kitchen windows, and are managed by rangers rather than shot.
Written for this edition, 2026.