Genus Inuus
Cuvier applies this term to the Magots or rudimentary-tailed Macaques. The monkeys of this genus are more compactly built than those of the last. They are also less herbivorous in their diet, eating frogs, lizards, crabs and insects, as well as vegetables and fruit. Their callosities and cheek-pouches are large, and they have a sac which communicates with the larynx under the thyroid cartilage, which fills with air when they cry out.
Some naturalists of the day, however, place all under the generic name Macacus.
No. 17. Inuus vel MACACUS SILENUS.
The Lion Monkey (Jerdon’s No. 6).
Native Names.—Nil bandar, Bengali; Shia bandar, Hindi; Nella manthi, Malabari.
Habitat.—The Western Ghâts of India from North Lat. 14° to the extreme south, but most abundant in Cochin and Travancore (Jerdon), also Ceylon (Cuvier and Horsfield), though not confirmed by Emerson Tennent, who states that the silenus is not found in the island except as introduced by Arab horse-dealers occasionally, and that it certainly is not indigenous. Blyth was also assured by Dr. Templeton of Colombo that the only specimens there were imported.
Description.—Black, with a reddish-white hood or beard surrounding the face and neck; tail with a tuft of whitish hair at the tip; a little greyish on the chest.
Size.—About 24 inches; tail, 10 inches.
There is a plate of this monkey in Carpenter and Westwood’s edition of Cuvier, under the mistaken name of Wanderoo.
It is somewhat sulky and savage, and is difficult to get near in a wild state. Jerdon states that he met with it only in dense unfrequented forest, and sometimes at a considerable elevation. It occurs in troops of from twelve to twenty.
No. 18. Inuus vel MACACUS RHESUS.
The Bengal Monkey (Jerdon’s No. 7).
Native Names.—Bandar, Hindi; Markot, Bengali; Suhu, Lepcha, Piyu, Bhotia.
Habitat.—India generally from the North to about Lat. 18° or 19°; but not in the South, where it is replaced by Macacus radiatus.
Description.—Above brownish ochrey or rufous; limbs and beneath ashy-brown; callosities and adjacent parts red; face of adult males red.
Size.—Twenty-two inches; tail 11 inches.
This monkey is too well-known to need description. It is the common acting monkey of the bandar-wallas, the delight of all Anglo-Indian children, who go into raptures over the romance of Munsur-ram and Chameli, their quarrels, parting, and reconciliation, so admirably acted by these miniature comedians.
NOTE.—For Macacus rheso-similis, Sclater, see P.Z.S. 1872, p. 495, pl. xxv., also P.Z.S. 1875, p. 418.
No. 19. Inuus vel MACACUS PELOPS.
Syn.—Macacus Assamensis.
The Hill Monkey (Jerdon’s No. 8).
Habitat.—The Himalayan ranges and Assam.
Description.—Brownish grey, somewhat mixed with slaty, and rusty brownish on the shoulders in some; beneath light ashy brown; fur fuller and more wavy than in rhesus; canine teeth long; of stout habit; callosities and face less red than in the last species (Jerdon). Face flesh-coloured, but interspersed with a few black hairs (McClelland).
No. 20. Inuus vel MACACUS NEMESTRINUS.
The Pig-tailed Monkey.
Habitat.—Tenasserim and the Malay Archipelago.
Description.—General colour grizzled brown; the piles annulated with dusky and fulvous; crown darker, and the middle of the back also darker; the hair lengthened on the fore-quarters; the back stripe extends along the tail, becoming almost black; the tail terminates in a bright ferruginous tuft. This monkey is noted for its docility, and in Bencoolen is trained to be useful as well as amusing. According to Sir Stamford Raffles it is taught to climb the cocoa palms for the fruit for its master, and to select only those that are ripe.
No. 21. Inuus vel MACACUS LEONINUS.
The Long-haired Pig-tailed Monkey.
Habitat.—Arracan.
Description.—A thick-set powerful animal, with a broad, rather flattened head above, and a moderately short, well clad, up-turned tail, about one-third the length of the body and head; the female smaller.—Anderson.
Face fleshy brown; whitish round the eyes and on the forehead; eyebrows brownish, a narrow reddish line running out from the external angle of the eye. The upper surface of the head is densely covered with short dark fur, yellowish brown, broadly tipped with black; the hair radiating from the vertex; on and around the ear the hair is pale grey; above the external orbital angle and on the sides of the face the hair is dense and directed backwards, pale greyish, obscurely annulated with dusky brown, and this is prolonged downwards to the middle of the throat. On the shoulders, back of the neck, and upper part of the thighs, the hairs are very long, fully three inches in the first-mentioned localities; the basal halves greyish; and the remainder ringed with eleven bands of dark brown and orange; the tips being dark. The middle and small of the back is almost black, the shorter hair there being wholly dark; and this colour is prolonged on the tail, which is tufted. The hair on the chest is annulated, but paler than on the shoulders, and it is especially dense on the lower part. The lower halves of the limbs are also well clad with annulated fur, like their outsides, but their upper halves internally and the belly are only sparsely covered with long brownish grey plain hairs, not ringed.
The female differs from the male in the absence of the black on the head and back, and in the hair of the under parts being brownish grey, without annulations. The shoulders somewhat brighter than the rest of the fur, which is yellowish olive; greyish olive on outside of limbs; dusky on upper surface of hands and feet; and black on upper surface of tail.
Size.—Length of male, head and body 23 inches; tail, without hair, 8 inches; with hair 10 inches.
The above description is taken from Dr. Anderson’s account, ‘Anat. and Zool. Res.,’ where at page 54 will be found a plate of the skull showing the powerful canine teeth. Blyth mentions a fine male with hair on the shoulders four to five inches long.
No. 22. Inuus vel MACACUS ARCTOIDES.
The Brown Stump-tailed Monkey.
Habitat.—Cachar, Kakhyen Hills, east of Bhamo.
Description.—Upper surface of head and along the back dark brown, almost blackish; sides and limbs dark brown; the hair, which is very long, is ringed with light yellowish and dark brown, darker still at the tips; face red; tail short and stumpy, little over an inch long.
This monkey is one over which many naturalists have argued; it is synonymous with Macacus speciosus, M. maurus, M. melanotus, and was thought to be with M. brunneus till Dr. Anderson placed the latter in a separate species on account of the non-annulation of its hair. It is essentially a denizen of the hills; it has been obtained in Cachar and in Upper Assam. Dr. Anderson got it in the Kakhyen Hills on the frontier of Yunnan, beyond which, he says, it spreads to the southeast to Cochin-China.
No. 23. Inuus vel Macacus Thibetanus.
The Thibetan Stump-tailed Monkey.
Description.—Head large and whiskered; form robust; tail stumpy and clad; general colour of the animal brown; whiskers greyish; face nude and flesh-coloured, with a deep crimson flush round the eyes.
Size.—Two feet 9 inches; tail about 3 inches.
This large monkey, though not belonging to British India, inhabiting, it is said, “the coldest and least accessible forests of Eastern Thibet,” is mentioned here, as the exploration of that country by travellers from India is attracting attention.
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