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Show 1867.] RANGE OF SEMNOPITHECUS ENTELLUS. 951 With regard to the alleged migration of the Himalayan species also, Captain Hutton mentions that ' this species is found at Simla all the year through; but when the snow falls during the winter it seeks a warmer climate in the depth of the khuds, returning again to the heights as it melts away.' I have seen them, however, on a fine sunshiny day, even with the snow on the ground, leaping from tree to tree up and down the hill of Jakii at Simla, which is about 8115 feet. Royle is mistaken when he says that the Entellus alone ascends in the summer months as high as 9000 feet. I have seen them at Nagkunda in August at that elevation, and in winter on Hattii Mountain, which is 10,655 feet-and in winter at Simla, with snow 4 or 5 inches deep and hard frosts at night, as high as 8000 feet. The Macacus rhesus was also repeatedly seen during the month of February, when the snow was 5 and 6 inches deep, at Simla, roosting in the trees at night on the side of Jakii, and apparently regardless of the cold"*. There is in all this a great deal of error, for part of which I am responsible, and which it is high time should be corrected. In the first place, then, I am fully convinced, as Mr. Blyth also appears to be, that there is no true migration of the Entellus, in the proper sense of the word, from the upper to the lower districts of Bengal. The animal will vary in numbers at different seasons, according as food is scarce or plentiful; and wherever this is most abundant and most palatable, there it is probable will the Entellus be found in abundance also. I have already shown that the animal's constitution will not permit it to live long even at Muttra and Bindrabun, and consequently that its existence in the Himalaya is utterly impossible. At the time when I, and Dr. Royle before me, confounded the Entellus with the Himalayan Lungoor, the species were not admitted by naturalists to be distinct; for although I stated m y own doubts of their identity, yet I had, in 1837, against me the weighty authority of Mr. Hodgson in Nipal and of Dr. J. E. Gray in England ; so that, being myself but a tyro, I was compelled to give in. The same error arose also in regard to AI. rhesus, which is not found within the mountains. M y remarks, as it now appears, refer to more than one species of Bunder, which are distinct from the Rhesus and confined to the Himalaya. It was necessary to say thus much regarding the Entellus in order to correct the erroneous notion that prevails respecting its occurrence in the Himalaya, the base of which it does not approach within several degrees. In the north-western portion of those hills it is replaced by the so-called Lungoor, while to the south-east occur the species now known as Semnopithecus pileatus and S. barbel, it being very doubtful, from what I can learn, whether the Lungoor extends its range so far to the eastward, or, indeed, beyond the eastern frontier of Nipal. And now a word, in conclusion, as to the alleged occurrence of the Entellus in Assam. The error in this respect appears to have entirely originated in the unauthorized change of a name used by M. * J. A. S.B. xii. p. 174. |
