FACE OF THE WANDEROO.
FACE OF THE WANDEROO.
They have slim bodies, which are covered with deep black hair, and there is a longish tail of the same colour, ended by a little tuft. Their head looks very large, because of a mane, or ruff, and beard which surrounds the face, sticking out in a wild kind of way. This mass of long hair is either grey or white in colour, and adds to the sly look of the broad face, soft dull eyes, and rather long black muzzle.
A former dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church, the Procurator-General of the Barefooted Carmelites, Father Vincent Maria, writes that there are four kinds of Monkeys on the coast of Malabar, and then proceeds to describe the Wanderoo. He says that this is perfectly black, is clothed with glossy hair, and has a white beard round his head and chin, measuring rather more than a palm in length. To him all the other Monkeys show such deep respect, that in his presence they are submissive, and humble themselves as if they were aware of his pre-eminence. The princes and great lords esteem him highly, for that he is, above every other, gifted with gravity, capacity, and a wise appearance. Easily is he taught to perform a variety of ceremonies and courtesies, and all these in so serious and perfect a style as to make it a great wonder that they should so exactly be enacted by an irrational animal. This excellent character does not appear to have been peculiar to all the Wanderoos; for some have been described as savage and disgusting in the extreme, and as most vicious and malignant in captivity. But it is probable that the gentleness of disposition which has been so noticed by those who have kept them kindly was spoiled by teasing and maltreatment.
The showmen call this Monkey the “Child of the Sun;” and Broderip suggests that it is the ruff, with the head peeping through, which gives a faint likeness to old Sol over a public-house door; and that probably the dark colour of the animal impressed his exhibitors with the great heat he enjoyed in his Indian home.
Certainly they like the sun; and we have often seen a pair at the Zoological Gardens sunning themselves after their breakfast with great delight. They sit on a bar, close to the wires of the cage, and climb four or five feet up it, clinging close to their iron prison, just in the range of a sunbeam. They spread out their black hands, and enjoy the glare, becoming sleepy and disinclined to pay any attention to nuts, cakes, and other temptations. They peer down at you with their expressive eyes, and give an occasional twist to their tail, to pull it close to them, probably after a long experience of the habits of the other Monkeys in the cage, who certainly have not an overwhelming respect for them. It is curious to see them climbing slowly, and without the great exertion and bounds of some of the Guenons, and to notice their marching, head and back downwards, whilst they crawl along the under-side of the roof of their house, looking down every now and then in a cunning sort of manner.
WANDEROO.
WANDEROO.
Broderip used to watch one, when the Zoological Society’s collection was in its infancy in Bruton Street, and a right merry fellow was he.“He would run up his pole and throw himself over the cross-bar, so as to swing backwards and forwards as he hung suspended by the chain which held the leathern strap that girt his loins. The expression of his countenance was peculiarly innocent; but he was sly—very sly—and not to be approached with impunity by those who valued their head-gear. He would sit demurely on his cross perch, pretending to look another way, or to examine a nut-shell for some remnant of kernel, till a proper victim came within his reach; when down the pole he rushed, and up he was again in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the bare-headed surprised one, minus his hat, at least, which he had the satisfaction of seeing undergoing a variety of transformations, under the plastic hands of the grinning monster, not at all calculated to improve a shape which the taste of a Moore [the hat maker of the day], perhaps, had designed and executed. It was whispered—horrescimus referentes—that he once scalped a bishop, who ventured too near, notwithstanding the caution given to his lordship by another dignitary of the Church, and that it was some time before he could be made to give up, with much grinning and chattering, the well-powdered wig which he had profanely transferred from that sacred poll to his own. The lords spiritual of the present day, with one or two exceptions, are safe from such sacrilege. Now it would be nearly as difficult to take a wig off a bishop as it once was to take the breeches off a Highlandman. But another Wanderoo, confined in the open part of the gardens in the Regent’s Park, was of a different temperament. There was a melancholy about this creature. He would climb his pole, ascend to his elevated house-top, and there sit for half an hour together, gazing wistfully at the distant portion of the park—which presented, when viewed from his position, the appearance of a thick wood—every now and then looking down, as if he was contrasting the smooth, sharp-pointed pole, to which they fettered him, with the rugged, ‘living columns of the evergreen palaces’ of his fathers.” The Wanderoo often loses some of his tail in captivity; but it should be, when full-grown, terminated by a tuft, which, in the imagination of some, has been considered quite lion-like. Having large cheek-pouches, this Monkey, very un-lion-like in disposition, feeds rather rapidly, and stores away much for future occasion. In doing this it either carries the food to the mouth with the hand or places its mouth to the object. It moves on all-fours, and has callosities; and these, and the tail, give it a very baboon-like appearance. Nothing is known of their habits in their wild state.
The geographical range of the Inui, or Macaques, is very great, and some of the twenty-seven species of which the genus is composed have very restricted wandering grounds, whilst others are found over a wide extent of country. As a group, they are found from North Africa to China, and species are met with at Gibraltar and Eastern Tibet, and within range of the everlasting snow. They are found in the peninsulas of India, and in the great islands as far south-west as Timor and in the Philippines, but not in Celebes or in New Guinea.