9.
Inches.
Greatest breadth of scapula at middle , ■ * . ' * ' ' ^
Anterior border of ilium to posterior margin of tuberosity . • • 5‘30
.Oblique diameter of pelvis ......... ........................................................... .........
Transverse diameter of p e l v i s ................................................. ................... 190
Antero-posterior diameter o f p e l v i s ........................................ ................... ^'65
Distance between bones opposite acetabula posteriorly . . . . 1‘25
„ • „ inferior borders of tuberosities . . . . • 0'70
„ „ tuberosities superiorly . . . - • • 1'42
In the neighbourhood of Bhamô a young male was brought to me which unfortunately
had had nearly the whole of its tail chopped off by the Kakhyens. I took it
alive to London, and presented it to the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park. When
I prooured it, it differed from the young of M. rhesus in the more uniformly brown
colour of its pelage, and after an interval of three months, when it had reached
England, these characters had become more pronounced. 1 I t was then uniformly
reddish brown, the rufous paling on the outside of the thighs and on the fore-arms,
bu t becoming dusky brown on the feet. The face and ears were dusky, contrasting
with the paler face and ears of the generality of the males of M. rhesus from
Bengal. The hair on the vertex tended to radiate, that on the forehead being
directed forwards, and the hair around the area of radiation being darker than
that on the sides of the head. The under parts were rather thickly clad, the
thoracic and ventral portions were more or less washed with pale golden-yellow.
The skin around the callosities was thickly clad. Now, six months afterwards, the
characters of its coloration separate it much more distinctly from M. rhesus. TJie
coat generally has become much darker, and on the head and along the dorsal
surface it is more or less washed with dark brown or blackish, and the feet are
dark brown. The under surface, too, has the golden-yellow more pronounoed, and
long, pale, yellow-brown hairs are beginning to be developed behind the ears. The
shoulders are sensibly washed with yellowish, the fur seems devoid of annulations,
and the hind quarters have none of the characteristic red colour which generally
distinguishes the common monkey of India. In these latter characters it resembles
the type of M. assamensis, and in them exactly corresponds to the monkey which
was described by Sclater as M. rheso-smilis! As no young M. rhesus has ever
shown such an assemblage of characters in confinement, and as they_ closely
correspond to the general and distinctive features of the type of M. assamensis
which is a ferine example of a monkey, these facts would seem to point to the
existence of a marked race of rhesus-like Macaque, ranging through the Himalaya,
Assam, and Upper Burma.
This is further supported by the circumstance that Hodgson has referred to
M. pelops, a monkey, apparently not adult, from which the M. rheso-similis, Sclater,
and my young monkey from Bhamô, are in no way separable—a statement which
is made on the strength of a careful comparison of these materials.
l The figure in the Proo. Zool. See. 1872, p i 25, is not coloured sufficiently rufous i the latter should be more of the
shade depicted in M . rvfescens, pi. 24 of the same volume.
But before considering M. pelops and its relationship to M. assamensis, I
have to remark th a t the former has long been a puzzle to zoologists owing to a
variety of circumstances, among which may be mentioned the following : first,
that the characters which distinguish it were not clearly defined by its desçriber ;
second, that the distribution which he assigned it was drawn with an unnatural precision,
inapplicable moreover to species with the roving habits which more or less
characterise monkeys ; 1 and third, the difficulty of procuring ferine examples of
monkeys, more particularly of animals inhabiting the Himalayan region.
Hodgson, writing in 1832, observed that there were no monkeys in the northern
and central regions of Nepal, and that those of the southern region were identical,
so far as he knew, with the ordinary species of the plains, or the lamgur and the
bandar. In a foot-note, however, he stated that religion had introduced the latter
(M. rhesus) into the central regions, where it seemed to flourish half domesticated
in the neighbourhood of temples in the populous valley of Nepal Proper. I t is
important to observe that he divided Nepal into three climatic provinces, each of
which he considered to be distinguished by certain well-marked physical and
geological features. The first of these was the lower region, which he held had
the ciimate of the plains of Nepal with some increase of heat and a great excess
of moisture. This tract included the Tarai or marshes, the Bhawar or forest, and
thé lower hills. The second region he termed the central, and defined as a cluster-
ous succession of mountains varying in elevation from 3,000 to 10,000 feet, and
having a temperature of from 10 to 20 degrees lower than that of the plains.
The third tract he denominated the juxta-Himalayan or Kachar, consisting of high
mountains, the summits of which were covered for half the year in snow, and the
climate of the region he described as having nothing tropical about it but the
successions of the seasons.
Nine years afterwards his opinion regarding the non-existence of wild
monkeys in the central and northern regions of Nepal was abandoned, as in 1841
he described Semnopithecus schistaceus and M. omops from the southern or Tarai
region, and M. pelops from the northern region of hills exclusively. But he held
that the first of these occasionally ranged through the central to the northern
region. This latter observation has been fully verified by other naturalists having
observed P . schistaceus at 12,000 feet, and the late Captain Hutton records that he
had seen the same species a t an elevation of 11,000 feet, while the fir trees among
which they sported were laden with snow. But there is no evidence tha t any
species of monkey in the Himalaya is naturally resident a t those heights a t which
snow annually lies, as was supposed by Hodgson, and it is the rarity of their occurrence
at these high elevations and during winter that has directed so much attention
to their hibernal wanderings. In the summer they are much more widely distributed
than in the winter, when, as a rule, they are driven to lower heights and
into the warmer valleys. I have said naturally resident because it is a well-known
1 In the neighbourhood of Calcutta (Botanical Gardens) large troops of 8. entellus make their appearance for a
few days in spring and are not to be seen there at other seasons of the year.