60 Dr F. Hamilton's Account of the Vanderon Mmkey:M 



ing nearly half an acre. Its surface is thickly studded with 

 dog-wood, although not a bush of it is found beyond the li- 

 mits of the island, as though it were an enemy to the water 

 that surrounds it. There are upon it six large trees, two of 

 which measure in girth three feet and upwards, besides seve- 

 ral clusters of willow trees of small growth. These rise and 

 fall with the island. The pond is usually dry during the 

 summer months, and at these seasons the island has been found 

 so low that you would descend, perceptibly, in passing to it 

 from the dry bed of the pond. I visited it yesterday, and 

 found it elevated about eighteen inches above the level of the 

 pond^s bottom, owing to the rains that have recently fallen. 



The customary rise of the pond in the fall and spring is 

 about eight feet, although it has been known to rise twelve : 

 the island preserves the same elevation above the surface of 

 the water in the different periods of its rise. I have been told 

 to-day, by a man of unequivocal veracity, that he has forced 

 a pole, ten feet in length, down through the centre of the isl- 

 and, and with this, as far as he could extend it with his arm, 

 has been unable to meet with a solid and permanent bottom. 

 He also informed me, that, when the pond was very high, these 

 large trees standing upon the margin of the island overhang 

 the water with considerable obliquity, owing, probably, to the 

 roots being brought to a great degree of tension, and prevent- 

 ing the exterior part of the island from rising with the centre. 

 It is not entirely detached from the bed of the pond, but seems 

 to be a kind of a stratum peeled off from the solid parts below. 

 In passing across its surface, the whole island is considerably 

 agitated , and presents a waving appearance, like the sea ; you 

 are toiling continually to ascend, as though it were a surface 

 of flexible ice. 



Art. IX. — Notice respecting the Vanderon Monkey , or the 

 Guenon a face pourpre of Buffbn. By Francis Hamil- 

 ton, M. D. F. R. S. and F. A. S. Lond. and Edin. Com- 

 municated by the Author. 



T>iE most common monkey in the vicinity of Point du Galle 

 in Ceylon, and therefore called Vanderon, seems to be that 



11 



