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Show 1867.] RANGE OF SEMNOPITHECUS ENTELLUS. 947 since there is among all these black-faced and long-tailed species so great a general resemblance, that it would be quite impossible, at any distance, for a mere casual observer to say with any degree of certainty what the animal seen might be. Moreover it is this very confounding of several distinct species in different parts of the country, under the long venerated title of Hoonoomaun, that has led compilers of works on natural history to declare that the range of that species extends from the sea-coast of the southern peninsula up to the northern ranges of the Cis-Himalaya. If, then, the Entellus has ever been seen in Assam, it is not because that province forms part of its natural range, but because, as elsewhere, it has been purposely introduced from religious motives; but, from all that recent writers on Assam and Bhotan have observed, I strongly doubt even whether any such introduction of the species has there occurred. The grounds on which its occurrence in Assam has been asserted I shall presently expose to view. How far up the country in a northerly direction the animal may be found is not easily determined, although I am inclined to doubt its occurrence indigenously higher than Allahabad, at the junction of the Jumna with the Ganges, through which point I would draw as nearly as possible a straight line across the country to the westward, as far as a little below Boon-dee, as the northern limit of its range. South of Boondee, and a few miles above Neemuch, the animal used to occur in a grove surrounding some Hindoo temples; but as I never heard of its occurrence elsewhere in the neighbourhood, I suspect it to have been introduced there from Muttra or Bindrabun. That the Entellus has sometimes occurred abundantly at Bindrabun and also at Muttra does not militate against this view, inasmuch as, both being holy cities with hosts of bigoted devotees and fakirs, the animal has been purposely introduced to those localities, where it has always been held in great veneration, and has sometimes multiplied into many thousands in the gardens and groves surrounding the temples, while in the outlying neighbourhood it does not occur at all, except as an occasional straggler from the sacred band. That it is not indigenous there is proved by the fact that, although it has often been introduced, it never lives long in those localities, but from time to time dies out altogether. Johnson, in his ' Indian Field Sports,' tells us that when he visited Bindrabun there were then no monkeys of this species, but only the common brown Bunder or Rhesus. Here, then, we have a proof that the animal had been previously introduced and had died out; for Johnson's book was published in 1839 ; while in the spring of 1836, only three years before, when I passed a day at Bindrabun, they were numerous. Turner in 1800 wrote that he had seen the Entellus at Muttra; in 1836 I also saw it at Bindrabun; yet in 1839, when Johnson's book was published, there were none left. In 1843 it was again brought into Muttra, and died out in a couple of years, while I am informed by a gentleman now residing in Muttra that at present, in the current year of 1867, while the Rhesus swarms there, the Entellus is altogether absent. , . |