Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Mammalia).djvu/46

10 look at one standing erect about 10 feet away, and considered it too large for a Hylobates, as its height was about 4 feet. It was, in front, of a deep ferruginous colour, and as it moved away it was distinctly seen to be tailless. Mr. Davison does not remember the colour of the back, but thinks it was the same as that of the underparts. He had only a half-charge of the smallest shot in his gun, so did not fire, and he never saw any of these animals again.

Captain Bingham informs me that a specimen was brought to him in the flesh (but unfortunately so decomposed that only the skeleton could be preserved) of a tailless female Ape, with long grizzled red hair on the outside of the limbs, and standing about 3 feet 6 inches high. This was near the place, Muleyit, where the animals above mentioned were seen by Mr. Davison. The skeleton was subsequently lost or mislaid. The same observer once saw a party of four or five large tailless monkeys at the foot of Muleyit, but these appeared to be black in colour. None of the animals resembled Gibbons.

Both Mr. Davison and Captain Bingham are excellent observers. The only known animal corresponding with their descriptions is the Ourang-outang, but so well-known a form would have been recognized by others. It is perhaps more probable that the animal seen may have been a tailless, or nearly tailless, Macacus.

 

Family CERCOPITHECIDÆ.

This family comprises all the Old-World Apes, Monkeys, and Baboons, with the exception of the anthropoid Apes. It is divided into two subfamilies, both represented in India.

 

Subfamily CERCOPITHECINÆ. In this subfamily are included not only all the common Indian Monkeys except those belonging to the Hanuman or Langur group, but also the closely allied African forms belonging to the genera Cercopithecus and Cercocebus. The African Baboons (Cynocephalus), distinguished by having the nostrils quite at the end of the muzzle, are also included by many writers.

By Blyth, Jerdon, and others, the short-tailed Indian Monkeys were classed in the genus Inuus, the long-tailed Macaques in Macacus. But the type of Lacépède's original genus Macaca