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Show 626 MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON THE [Dec. 6, appeared was ever published ; it was probably distributed to a few naturalists, but not issued in such a way as to give validity to the title. IV. On Presbytis or Semnopithecus thersites. A Hanuman Monkey from Ceylon was named Presbytis thersites in M S . by Walter Elliot, and was thus described by Blyth in 18471:- " Adult male inferior in size to P. entellus . . . . of a uniform dusky grey colour (devoid of fulvous tinge) on the upper parts, darker on the crown and fore limbs and passing to dull slaty-brown on the wrists and hands ; the hair upon the toes whitish or dull white ; no crest upon the vertex (as in P. priamus), nor does the hair there form a sort of transverse ridge (as in the living P. entellus); face surrounded with white, narrow over the brows ; the whiskers and beard more developed than in the other Entelloid species, and very conspicuously white, contrasting much with the crown and body, which are darker than in P.priamus." Subsequently, in 18512, Blyth observed that P. thersites did not exhibit " the radiating centres of hair a little behind the brow seen in various other Entelloid Monkeys." Kelaart (Prodr. Faun. Zeyl. p. 5) admitted P. thersites as distinct, and was followed by Sir E. Tennent and others. But in his ' Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum Asiatic Society,'3 published in 1863, Blyth classed the original type of P. thersites under his P. priamus. This view was adopted by Dr. J. Anderson both in his ' Anatomical and Zoological Researches,' p. 19, and in his ' Catalogue of Mammalia in the Indian Museum, Calcutta,' p. 38. Dr. Anderson's conclusions, like Blyth's, were founded on the original types. I confess to being much puzzled. Dr. Anderson was doubtless under the impression that the longitudinal crest in P. priamus was artificial and due to the stuffer. But the common S. Indian and Ceylonese Semnopithecus is unquestionably crested. We have the testimony of several observers who have seen it alive, amongst them Jerdon and Kelaart, and recently Mr. W . Davison has been good enough carefully to observe living individuals and to communicate the result to me. I have also seen dried skins both from S. India and Ceylon, several of which had not been subjected to any manipulation, and in all the crest was as distinct as possible. Moreover, so far as I have been able to obseive, the peculiar radiation of the hairs on the anterior part of the crown, so conspicuous in S. entellus and S. schistaceus, is always distinctly', if somewhat less, conspicuous in S. priamus. Blyth, however, especially described the type of his Presbytis thersites as wanting both crest and radiation. Now there is nothing in the description of P. thersites, so far as I can see, to distinguish it from Semnopithecus ccphalopteius, which has neither crest nor radiation, and which has " the whiskers and beard more developed than in the other Entelloid species, and very 1 J. A. S. B. xvi, p. 1271. a J. A. S. B. xx. p. 154. » P. 12. |
