CROWNED MONKEY.
CROWNED MONKEY.
The skull of the Douc has large and open orbits, faint side crests, and faint crests passing from the ear over the occiput. The face is small in relation to the brain-case, and the shape of the whole differs greatly from that of the Troglodytes in this respect. The lower jaw is angular behind, and the portion (the ascending branch or ramus) which leads up to the joint is very straight. The teeth in it are of the same number as those of the Gibbons; but the last grinder is long, and has a very distinct heel-like back, point, or cusp. The other four points, or cusps, are placed two in front and two behind them, those in front are united by a cross ridge, then comes a hollow across the tooth, and then the back pairs, which are united by a ridge, and then the heel follows. The other crushing molar teeth have four cusps, in pairs, each pair having a common cross ridge, and the pairs are separated by a furrow. The teeth are close together, and the first false molar is smaller than the second. The upper jaw projects a little, and the front jaw-bone (pre-maxillary) remains distinct. Its crushing teeth have four points, or cusps, but the outline of the teeth is not straight at the sides, but doubly curved, so that the entrance of the curves is between the cusps, and it corresponds to the furrow. All this gives a very animal look to the teeth.
It must be remembered that these teeth are used more for crushing soft vegetable matters than for cracking nuts, and things which can be stowed away in a cheek-pouch and devoured at leisure. Hence the difference between the teeth of these and of the Macaques.
“When observed in their native wilds,” writes Sir James Emerson Tennent, “a party of twenty or thirty of these creatures are generally busily engaged in the search for berries and buds. They are seldom to be seen on the ground, and then only when they have descended to recover seeds or fruit that have fallen at the foot of their favourite trees. In their alarm, when disturbed, their leaps are prodigious, but generally speaking their progress is made not so much by leaping as by swinging from branch to branch, using their powerful arms alternately, and when baffled by distance, flinging themselves obliquely so as to catch the lower boughs of an opposite tree, the momentum acquired by their descent being sufficient to cause a rebound, that sends then again upwards, till they can grasp a higher branch, and thus continue their headlong flight.”
PRIAMUS MONKEY. (After Tennent.)
PRIAMUS MONKEY. (After Tennent.)
This Monkey is very active and intelligent, and is not very mischievous, and, indeed, is much less so than the other Monkeys of Ceylon. In captivity it is remarkable for the gravity of its behaviour, and for an air of melancholy in its expression and movements, which is completely in characterwith its snowy beard and venerable aspect. Its disposition is gentle and confiding; it is in the highest degree sensible of kindness, and eager for endearing attentions, uttering a low plaintive cry when its sympathies are excited. It is particularly cleanly in its habits when domesticated, and spends much of its time in cleaning its fur, and carefully divesting it of the least particle of dust.
The Nestor is about sixteen inches in length (the body and head), and the tail measures twenty inches. The prevailing colour is a deep grey, with a slight tinge of brown, becoming paler on the back of the neck and on the tail, where the previous tinge is more marked. The hands and lower part of the limbs are nearly black. Its lips, chin, and whiskers are nearly pure white, the tips of the latter, which are brushed backwards, being grey. There is a stiff ridge of black hairs over the eyebrows, and they are about an inch and a half in length. The moderate length of the hairs, the light colour and the white of the lower sides of the face, are distinctive. It inhabits the southern and western provinces of Ceylon, and is found at a higher elevation than even 1,300 feet.
This is a larger Monkey than the last, and lives in the hills higher up the country of Ceylon than the Nestor. It is wilder and more powerful than its lowland neighbour, and is rarely seen by Europeans. It clings to the deep woods, and seldom approaches the few roads which have been made through these solitudes. There is a good deal of the Bear in its general appearance, and Major Forbes, travelling in Ceylon, noticed this first of all. He says:—“A species of very large Monkey, that passed some distance before me, when resting on all-fours looked so like a Ceylon Bear that I took him for one.” Hence the name Ursinus.
Another very rare Monkey in Ceylon is, for some hidden cause, namedSemnopithecus Thersites. Thersites was the most ugly and the most impudent talker of the Greeks before Troy, and probably this Monkey is ugly and impudent in the extreme. It is deficient in the head-tuft, which adds to the beauty of the genus; but its temper is good, and it is grateful. One which was caught was fond of being noticed and petted, stretching out his limbs in succession to be scratched, drawing himself up so that his ribs might be reached by the finger, and closing his eyes during the operation, evincing his satisfaction by grimaces absolutely ludicrous. He was fond of fresh vegetables, plantains, and fruit, and ate freely of boiled rice, beans, and grain.
The last Ceylonese Monkey to be noticed is theSemnopithecus Priamus.
It inhabits the northern and eastern provinces, and the wooded hills which occur in those portions of the island. In appearance it differs both in size and in colour from the common Wanderoo (S. Nestor), being larger and greyer, and its habits are much less reserved. Where the population is comparatively numerous, these Monkeys become so familiarised with the presence of man as to exhibit the utmost daring and indifference. A flock of them will take possession of a Palmyra palm, and so effectually can they crowd and conceal themselves among the leaves that, on the slightest danger, the whole party becomes invisible on the instant. The presence of a Dog, however, excites such an irrepressible curiosity, that, in order to watch his movements, they never fail to betray themselves. They may be seen frequently congregated on the roof of a native hut; and some years ago the child of a European clergyman having been left on the ground by the nurse, was so teased and bitten by them as to cause its death. The Ceylon people hold the singular belief that the remains of a Monkey are never found in the forest—a belief which they have embodied in a proverb, that “He who has seen a white crow, the nest of the piddybird, a straight cocoa-nut tree, or a dead Monkey, is certain to live for ever.” “This piece of folk-lore has evidently reached Ceylon from India,” writes Sir J. Emerson Tennent, from whose work the extract is taken, “where it is believed that persons dwelling on the spot where a Hoonuman Monkey (Semnopithecus entellus) has been killed, will die, and that even its bones are unlucky, and that no house erected where they are hid will prosper. Hence, when a house is to be built, one of the employments of wise men is to ascertain by their science that none such are concealed; and Buchanan observes that it is perhaps owing to the fear of this ill-luck that no native will acknowledge having seen a dead Hoonuman.”
Sir J. Emerson Tennent describes the method in which these Priamus Monkeys attack a garden,which is quite after the fashion of modern human military tactics. A green sward separated the garden of one of his friends from the jungle, and across this a single Monkey would cautiously steal about twenty paces, and halt to assure himself, by eye and ear, that all was safe. Presently a second would venture out from the trees, pass in front of the first, and squat himself after making another reconnaissance. A third and a fourth would then stealthily approach, always gaining an advance beyond the last vedette, and finally the whole body, having ascertained the absence of danger, advanced hastily but noiselessly to the enclosure; and having with infinite rapidity secured a sufficient supply of fruit, the troop dispersed simultaneously, with a rush and an exulting scamper, conscious that caution was no longer necessary. Possibly this Monkey becomes occasionally an albino, for white Monkeys having the general shape of the Priamus are captured every now and then not far from Colombo; and Spence Hardy mentions, in his work on “Eastern Monachism,” that on the occasion of his visit to the Great Temple of Dambool he encountered a troop of white Monkeys on the rock on which it is situated.
In the Semnopitheci and in the species of the next genus (Colobos) the face is long, the forehead rounded, and there is a decided angle to the jaw, so that the facial angle is considerable.[36]
All the Monkeys of the genus Semnopithecus which have been found by travellers and naturalists live in Asia and its islands, and thus their geographical limit is precise. Now, there are some Monkeys which resemble them in most points, and which are only found in the forests of tropical Africa; that is to say, in Abyssinia on the east, and from Gambia to Angola on the west. They are also found on the Island of Fernando Po. These have the thumbs of the hands extremely small, and they are but mere useless projections. They are Semnopitheci without thumbs, and the Greek word κολοβός (“docked or stunted”) has been used to designate them.
The kinds of Monkeys included in the genus Colobos are not very numerous, and they are interesting more on account of their beautiful skins, which form ornaments and articles of commerce in Africa, and for those suggestions which must occur to the mind of every one who thinks a little about natural history, regarding the cause of the absence of such an important structure as the thumb in a group of animals, whose other characters are similar to those of a genus possessing it. Very little is known about their habits in a state of nature, and few have ever been brought alive to Europe.
The thumb is not seen in the least in one kind of Colobos, the true Colobos (Colobos verus); in others it is like a little knob, but in none is it of any use. In the corresponding member of other Monkeys there are three bones, one placed before the other. The first, the metacarpal, is the nearest the wrist, and is jointed to the wrist-bone called trapezium, and in front it is in contact with the second bone, or the first phalanx of the thumb. This is ended by the second phalanx, which bears the nail. These are terms used by anatomists, and the word metacarpal means “the next in order of rank to the wrist.” These metacarpal bones intervene between the knuckles and the wrist, and are long and parallel with each other, there being five in the hand. They are not usually very movable on the wrist, but that of the thumb is, and they have a joint at the further end which unites them with the so-called internode or phalanx-bone, No. 1. The word internode means between joints, and the term phalanx is one of those unmeaning applications of Greek terms which abound in anatomy. The phalanx was an order of battle, and means rows placed in parallel order: the internodes of the fingers, when in place, are one before the other and side by side, like the soldiers in the Greek order of battle. Each phalanx represents a bone: there are two in the thumb, and three in the other fingers. In the Colobos there is a joint on the wrist-bone for a thumb, but no thumb exists, but there is just a little vestige of a bone, and it is probably the first phalanx, or internode, and not the metacarpal.
The thumb is therefore “rudimentary” in the genus Colobos, and why? The animals are tree-climbers and active jumpers, and can run very well on all-fours; in fact, their method of lifeand of motion is that of the Monkeys which have well-formed thumbs. The notion of a useless organ is at first repulsive to our ideas of the benevolent scheme of Nature. Mr. Darwin writes, “In reflecting on them every one must be struck with astonishment; for the same reasoning power which tells us plainly that most parts and organs are exquisitely adapted for certain purposes tells us with equal plainness that these rudimentary or atrophied organs are imperfect or useless.” Let us take a well-known instance of such a structure: the Calf when born has cutting teeth in its upper jaw hidden in the gum; they are not in sockets, and even if they were, they would be of no use in biting. The Ox has no cutting or incisor teeth in its upper jaw, as every one knows, and the tongue touches a hard and moist gum there. The incisor teeth of the Calf are never cut, but they are gradually absorbed in the gum with age. Now what is their meaning? They are of no use in sucking, or in anything which occurs in the early life of the animal: they are clearly useless and rudimentary or atrophied structures. Take another example: the little Kiwi bird of New Zealand has no wings with which to fly, yet the bones are there in a dwarfed and rudimentary condition; many insects have no wings, or have them so reduced in size that they are of no use in flight, and sometimes the males have them in perfection, and the females have none. In explaining this subject two courses are open, first, to beg the question, and to say that the design of the Creator was thus; or to account for it on the principle that the Creator acts by law, and that creatures become modified and altered by inherent power, and by having to obey the force of surrounding circumstances generation after generation.
COLOBOS VERUS. (After Van Beneden.)
COLOBOS VERUS. (After Van Beneden.)
In the instance of the male and female insect just noticed, the male is active, and has to search for his partner, and the female is a stay-at-home, and expects to be courted, and when mated to do nothing more than lay eggs. Her wings would be of doubtful value. We may believe, then, thatdisuse, generation after generation, gradually weakened the wing, and finally Nature, ever economical in not-used organs, did not perpetuate it. Disuse may be therefore considered as the principal cause of the atrophy, rudimentary condition, and of the final deficiency of structures. But disuse will not produce this in one generation, but in many, so it is necessary to look farther back into the ancestry ofthe creatures which have rudimentary organs. The four-legged ruminating or cud-chewing animals have bones and feet of peculiar arrangement, and there is no difficulty in at once knowing a ruminant by its bones. Now, in former ages, and before there was a trace of man on the globe, there were ruminants, as known by their bones found in strata or deposits, and they had incisor teeth in their upper jaws when full grown, and not only when in the calf condition. The inference to be drawn is, that the modern Oxen are the descendants of those ancient forms with incisor teeth, and that disuse, probably produced by the introduction of grass-feeding on a grand scale, instead of leaf-and bud-nibbling, gradually diminished the strength and permanence of the front upper teeth, and finally only left the simple traces of them which we have mentioned. Disuse by ancestral forms, by the forefathers, and the carrying down the weakened and atrophied state of the structure or organs, are the most important considerations in any attempt at the explanation of the seeming paradox. In endeavouring to apply this style of reasoning to the Colobos group—the Semnopitheci without thumbs—it must be asked, is there any evidence of the great antiquity of these Monkeys, and are there any evidences of anything wrong about the thumbs of their Asiatic allies?
GUEREZA.
GUEREZA.
It is remarkable, and bears strongly upon this point, that some of the fossil remains of animals found in India, on the flanks of the Himalayan Mountains, have a closer resemblance to a large Semnopithecus Monkey than to any other, and to one belonging to a kind much like the Entellus. The bony remains were found in collections of shingle, clay, and sand of great depth, and which included also the remains of the bones of Elephants, Giraffes, Hippopotamidæ, Crocodiles, and fresh-water Tortoises, and other land and fresh-water creatures. The deposits had accumulated in lakes and swamps in the plain near the distant flanks of a low range of hills, the ancient foundations of the present great snowy range, and then upheaval took place, which gave the very home of snow (Himalaya) its present vast altitude. The plains, lakes, and swamps were lifted up and tilted, and their relics are now found resting at a considerable angle on the main chain, and covered and folded over by the pressure exercised during the marvellous change in the physical geography of the district. Semnopitheci lived in India, then, before the Himalayas were a great chain of mountains, and they lived with animals which were African as well as Asiatic in their character. The vast age of thegroups of Monkeys must be admitted, for the Himalayas are as old as the Alps, and as both have been worn down into their present condition of peak, pass, and valley since they were uplifted, their age is incalculable by years. The former connection of Africa and Asia by means of intermediate land, which is now the floor of the Indian Ocean, to the west of Hindostan, may be reasonably asserted to have been severed at the same time when the mountains far away to the north-east received their breadth and height. So that before these great terrestrial changes occurred, Semnopitheci could have either an Indian or an African home. Disuse of the fore-thumbs in branch-crawling or swinging may then have commenced before that geological age in which these things happened, and it may have progressed very decidedly in Africa, and not so much in Asia. Hence the Semnopitheci here have rather small thumbs, and the African groups, separated by the physico-geographical change, and disusing generation after generation, have gradually lost the structure.
The Colobi resemble the Semnopitheci in the construction of their compound-looking stomach.
There is something very un-monkey-like in the shape of this Abyssinian animal, for it has long white hair, resembling the edge of a cloak, along its sides, and a long tail with a tuft to it. The natives chase it, and are fond of having some of their long hairy skins to cover their shields with. Assembling in little troops, the Guereza keeps well up in the tallest trees, in the neighbourhood of running water. They feed on fruit, grain, and insects, and are inoffensive and wild. The fur is certainly very prettily arranged, and the black and white truly oppose each other well. The colour of the fur of the head and of the greater part of the body is black, but the forehead is white, so are the sides of the face, the throat, and the sides of the neck. There is a mantle-like mop of long hairs starting from the region near the ribs, and the lower part of the back, and covering the flanks in a train behind. It is of a white colour, and exists in both sexes; nevertheless, it is longest in the females and adults. The tail is white, hairy, and tufted.
Another of the Colobi has a very dignified look given to it by a large mass of hair which covers its neck and shoulders like a little cloak. It has slim legs and a long tail. For some reason or other the natives in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone call it the King of the Monkeys. The face and limbs and body are black, and a great mass of hair starting from the forehead and brushed back from the sides of the face and chin, the neck and shoulders all round, falls down on all sides. This is of a dusky yellow colour. The tail is white. It is called the Cloaked or Many-haired Colobos (Colobos polycomos).
As if to contrast kinds of the genus Colobos, which have great general resemblances, Nature has provided some with red-coloured fur, instead of black and white; for instance, the Bay Monkey (Colobos ferrugineus); and finally, one very interesting species which, like all those mentioned, except the Guereza, comes from West Africa; it has a short fur of an olive colour, with a grey tint beneath and on the limbs. It has no long hairs on the body, and its tail is long and thin. ThisColobos verushas not a vestige of a thumb. There are eleven species of this genus.
Besides the fossil Semnopithecus found in the Himalayas others have been discovered in Greece, Würtemberg, and at Montpellier, and in strata of Mid-Tertiary and of Pliocene Age.