Part 14 (2/2)

Templeton of the Royal Artillery, who engaged a.s.siduously in the investigation of various orders, and commenced an interchange of specimens with Mr. Blyth[1], the distinguished naturalist and curator of the Calcutta Museum.

[Footnote 1: _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal,_ vol. xv. p. 280, 314.]

The birds and rarer vertebrata of the island were thus compared with their peninsular congeners, and a tolerable knowledge of those belonging to the island, so far as regards the higher cla.s.ses of animals, has been the result. The example so set has been perseveringly followed by Mr.

E.L. Layard and Dr. Kelaart, and infinite credit is due to Mr. Blyth for the zealous and untiring energy with which he has devoted his attention and leisure to the identification of the various interesting species forwarded from Ceylon, and to their description in the Calcutta Journal.

To him, and to the gentleman I have named, we are mainly indebted, for whatever accurate knowledge we now possess of the zoology of the colony.

The mammalia, birds, and reptiles received their first scientific description in an able work published recently by Dr. Kelaart of the army medical staff[1], which is by far the most valuable that has yet appeared on the Singhalese fauna. Co-operating with him, Mr. Layard has supplied a fund of information especially in ornithology and conchology.

The zoophytes and crustacea have been investigated by Professor Harvey, who visited Ceylon for that purpose in 1852, and by Professor Schmarda, of the University of Prague, who was lately sent there for a similar object. From the united labours of these gentlemen and others interested in the same pursuits, we may hope at an early day to obtain such a knowledge of the zoology of Ceylon, as may to some extent compensate for the long indifference of the government officers.

[Footnote 1: _Prodromus Faunae Zeylanicae; being Contributions to the Zoology of Ceylon_, by F. KELAART, Esq., M.D., F.L.S., &c. &c. 2 vols.

Colombo and London, 1852. Mr. DAVY, of the Medical Staff; brother to Sir Humphry, published in 1821 his _Account of the Interior of Ceylon and its Inhabitants_, which contains the earliest notices of the natural history of the island, and especially of the Ophidian reptiles.]

I. QUADRUMANA. 1 _Monkeys_.--To a stranger in the tropics, among the most attractive creatures in the forests are the troops of _monkeys_, which career in ceaseless chase among the loftiest trees. In Ceylon there are five species, four of which belong to one group, the Wanderoos, and the other is the little graceful grimacing _rilawa_[1], which is the universal pet and favourite, of both natives and Europeans.

[Footnote 1: _Macacus pileatus_, Shaw and Desmmarest. The ”bonneted Macaque” is common in the south and west; and a spectacled monkey is _said_ to inhabit the low country near to Bintenne; but I have never seen one brought thence. A paper by Dr. TEMPLETON in the _Mag. Nat.

Hist_. n.s. xiv. p. 361, contains some interesting facts relative to the Rilawa of Ceylon.]

KNOX, in his captivating account of the island, gives an accurate description of both; the Rilawas, with ”no beards, white faces, and long hair on the top of their heads, which parteth and hangeth down like a man's, and which do a deal of mischief to the corn, and are so impudent that they will come into their gardens, and eat such fruit as grows there. And the Wanderoos, some as large as our English Spaniel dogs, of a darkish grey colour, and black faces with great white beards round from ear to ear, which makes them shew just like old men. This sort does but little mischief, keeping in the woods, eating only leaves and buds of trees, but when they are catched they will eat anything.”[1]

[Footnote 1: KNOX, _Historical Relation of Ceylon, an Island in the East Indies_.--P. i. ch. vi. p. 25. Fol. Lond. 1681.]

KNOX, whose experience was confined almost exclusively to the hill country around Kandy, spoke in all probability of one large and comparatively powerful species, _Presbytes ursinus_, which inhabits the lofty forests, and which, as well as another of the same group, _P.

Thersites_, was, till recently, unknown to European naturalists. The Singhalese word _Ouanderu_ has a generic sense, and being in every respect the equivalent for our own term of ”monkey,” it necessarily comprehends the low country species, as well as those which inhabit other parts of the island. And, in point of fact, in the island there are no less than four animals, each of which is ent.i.tled to the name of ”wanderoo.”[1]

[Footnote 1: Down to a very late period, a large and somewhat repulsive-looking monkey, common to the Malabar coast, the Silenus veter, _Linn_., was, from the circ.u.mstance of his possessing a ”great white beard,” incorrectly a.s.sumed to be the ”wanderoo” of Ceylon, described by KNOX; and under that usurped name it has figured in every author from Buffon to the present time. Specimens of the true Singhalese species were, however, received in Europe; but in the absence of information in this country as to their actual habitat, they were described, first by Zimmerman, on the continent, under the name of _Leucoprymnus cephalopterus,_ and subsequently by Mr. E. Bennett, under that of _Semnopithecus Nestor (Proc. Zool. Soc._ pt. i. p. 67: 1833); the generic and specific characters being on this occasion most carefully pointed out by that eminent naturalist. Eleven years later Dr.

Templeton forwarded to the Zoological Society a description, accompanied by drawings, of the wanderoo of the western maritime districts of Ceylon, and noticed the fact that the wanderoo of authors (S. veter) was not to be found in the island except as an introduced species in the custody of the Arab horse-dealers, who visit the port of Colombo at stated periods. Mr. Waterhouse, at the meeting (_Proc. Zool. Soc._ p. 1: 1844) at which this communication was read, recognised the ident.i.ty of the subject of Dr. Templeton's description with that already laid before them by Mr. Bennett; and from this period the species in question was believed to truly represent the wanderoo of Knox. The later discovery, however, of the P. ursinus by Dr. Kelaart, in the mountains amongst which we are a.s.sured that Knox spent so many years of captivity, reopens the question, but at the same time appears to me to clearly demonstrate that in this latter we have in reality the animal to which his narrative refers.]

Each separate species has appropriated to itself a different district of the wooded country, and seldom encroaches on the domain of its neighbours.

1. Of the four species found in Ceylon, the most numerous in the island, and the one best known in Europe, is the Wanderoo of the low country, the _P. cephalopterus_ of Zimmerman.[1] It is an active and intelligent creature, not much larger than the common bonneted Macaque, and far from being so mischievous as others of the monkeys in the island. In captivity it is remarkable for the gravity of its demeanour and for an air of melancholy in its expression and movements, which is completely in character with 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g its fur, and carefully divesting its hair of particles of dust.

[Footnote 1: Leucoprymnus Nestor, _Bennett_.]

Although common in the southern and western provinces, it is never found at a higher elevation than 1300 feet.

When observed in their native wilds, a party of twenty or thirty of these creatures is 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 carries them again upwards, till they can grasp a higher branch; and thus continue their headlong flight. In these perilous achievements, wonder is excited less by the surpa.s.sing agility of these little creatures, frequently enc.u.mbered as they are by their young, which cling to them in their career, than by the quickness of their eye and the unerring accuracy with which they seem almost to calculate the angle at which a descent would enable them to cover a given distance, and the recoil to elevate themselves again to a higher alt.i.tude.

2. The low country Wanderoo is replaced in the hills by the larger species, _P. ursinus_, which inhabits the mountain zone. The natives, who designate the latter the _Maha_ or Great Wanderoo, to distinguish it from the _Kaloo_, or black one, with which they are familiar, describe it as much wilder and more powerful than its congener of the lowland forests. It is rarely seen by Europeans, this portion of the country having till very recently been but partially opened; and even now it is difficult to observe its habits, as it seldom approaches the few roads which wind through these deep solitudes. It was first captured by Dr.

Kelaart in the woods near Neuera-ellia, and from its peculiar appearance it has been named _P. ursinus_ by Mr. Blyth.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mr. Blyth quotes as authority for this trivial name a pa.s.sage from MAJOR FORBES' _Eleven Years in Ceylon_; and I can vouch for the graphic accuracy of the remark.--”A species of very large monkey, that pa.s.sed some distance before me, when resting on all fours, looked so like a Ceylon bear, that I nearly took him for one.”]

<script>