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Show 1867.] RANGE OF SEMNOPITHECUS ENTELLUS. 949 Himalaya within 200 miles of their outlying ranges known as the Siwaliks. With regard to its alleged occurrence in Ceylon, Cassell, in his • Popular Natural History,' has been completely misled by trusting too implicitly to the lying legends of the Ramayau, in which the exploits of Hoonoomaun, in that island, are recounted. The species which in that locality bears this name is not, as we learn from the indefatigable labours of Mr. Blyth, the continental Entellus, but the Semnopithecus thersites, Elliot, a totally distinct species, which is restricted to that island; and the only other Monkeys there found, if we except those which may have been imported as captives, are the S. cephalopterus, S. priamus, S. ursinus, and Macacus pileatus*. Then, again, as to its alleged occurrence in Nipal and Bhotan, Cassell erroneously informs us (and not Cassell only, for Mr. Ogilby long since did the same before him) " that, though a native of the hot plains of India, it is able to sustain the rigors of a much colder climate." I have shown, however, above, that it cannot bear even the slight change to Muttra and Bindrabun. "The monkeys of this species," continues Cassell, " ascend the Himalaya wherever wood is to be had; they are found in Nipal, a lofty mountain ridge, a great portion of which is always covered with snow, for its most elevated peaks are the highest mountains on the globe ; and Turner even informs us that he met with these monkeys on the Alpine Plains of Bhotan." Yet all this, although somewhat confident and high sounding, becomes in reality perfectly worthless when we call to mind the fact that Turner was no naturalist, and has evidently fallen into the fashionable error of confounding with the Entellus of the plains either the mountain Lungoor, or the Semnopithecus pileatus, or S. barbel (the two latter restricted to the south-eastern mountains)-an error from which Cassell evidently could not relieve him, and which has been repeated since Turner's day, by more competent observers, when the above-mentioned species had not, as now, been all recognized as distinct. Now it was this very tenderness of constitution and inability of the Entellus to bear up against great changes of climate and temperature that made me, several years ago, contend in epistold, with certain naturalists, against supposing the mountain S. schistaceus to be identical with the lowland Hoonoomaun, as likewise that the Rhesus should, on the score of climate, be held to be distinct from the supposed diminutive Rhesus of the mountains. M y reasoning was not then admitted as conclusive ; and as m y opponents were men of weight, I temporarily gave in and bided m y time. Yet the Lungoor is now acknowledged to be distinct from the Entellus, and I have acquired the means of proving the Rhesus of the plains to be equally distinct from the Bunder of the mountains. Nipal, however, is not exactly "a mountain ridge, a great portion of which is always covered with snow," but is, on the contrary, a rather warm valley of no great elevation, situated far to the south of the snowy ridge, * J. A. S. B. xvi. p. 1271 ; Cat. Mamm. Mus. As. Soc. Bengal. |
