Science Art: Pigtailed Baboon, 1811.

Scientific illustration of a baboon with a tail "exactly like a pig's."
Scientific illustration of a baboon with a tail "exactly like a pig's."

According to the accompanying text, this illustration depicts a baboon species “easily distinguished by its tail, which is four inches long, slender, and exactly like a pig’s.” After some more physical description, the writer adds, “Though full of vivacity, it has none of that impudent petulance peculiar to the other baboons; but is gentle, tractable, and even caressing. It is found in Sumatra and Japan. In the latter country, it is taught tricks and carried about by mountebanks.”

From The natural history of quadrupeds, and cetaceous animals : from the works of the best authors, antient and modern : embellished with numerous plates, accurately coloured from nature : in two volumes, published by Brightly and Co., and scanned from the Smithsonian into the Biodiversity Heritage Library.