( 138 ) 



NOTES OX CEETAIN MONKEYS NOW LIVING IN THE 

 ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MENAGERIE. 



By E. LYDEKKER. 



AT the owner's request I have examined a siunll collection of monkeys recently 

 deposited by Mr. Rothschild in the Zoological Society's (hardens, Regent's 

 Park, and the ibllowiug notes relating to certain of these are the result of 

 my visit : — 



1. Pluto Guenon— Cercopithecus leucampyx. 



The descriptions commonly given of this AVest African gneiion arc incorrect 

 in two ])articnlars : firstly, in stating that the light band above the forehead is 

 white, and, secondly, that the face is black. 



If we turn to Fischer's original description of Simia leHriiinpi/.r (" Synopsis 

 Mammalinin," p. 20, 1829), based on the monkey figured in F. Cavier's 

 " Mammiferes " (PI. XLII.), as the female of C. (liana, it will be seen that the 

 colour of the face is given as violet, while the light frontal band and the bushy 

 whiskers on the cheeks are described as being ringed with yellowish white, or yellow 

 and white. In the plate the frontal band (assuming Gray's pluto to be identical 

 ■with this) is, however, represented of mnch too large a size, and much lighter in 

 colour than the cheeks, being in fact pure white faintly stippled with black. 



In describing his Ge.rcopithi^en.^ phitn (now identified, and I think rightly, with 

 Fischer's leucampyx), Gray {Proc Zool. Soc. London, 1848, p. 59, PI. III.) speaks of 

 the face as black, while the frontal band is first referred to as being broad and 

 " white-ringed," and subsequently as " white." In the plate the band is repre- 

 sented as very large and ]inre white, although in a woodcnt given in the text it is 

 made to look much more like the whiskers, and thus more nearly true to nature. 

 In his " Catalogue of Monkeys " (1870, p. 23) the frontal band is stated to be white, 

 while the under-parts and inner sides of the thighs are described as being reddish 

 black. The former statement has been copied by most, if uot all, subsequent 

 English writers. 



On examining the type oi plitto in the British Museum, I find that the frontal 

 band, far from being white, is grizzled yellowish-white, some of the hairs being 

 apparently ringed with black and white, and others with black and yellow. It is, in 

 fact, but very little lighter than the whiskers, "which are mainly ringed with black 

 and yellow, forming a kind of '• pepper-and-salt " grizzle. The hair of the back is 

 jiractically similar in colour to the whiskers, but elsewhere the colour is mainly 

 lilack, tending to grey on the throat and chest. Nowhere do I see any trace of the 

 reddish tinge mentioned in Gray's " Catalogue." A tuft of jet-black long hair jnst 

 in front of each ear forms a very characteristic feature of this guenon. The type 

 s]iccimen, which came from Angola, was once living in the Zoological Society's 

 menagerie, bnt Gray's descrijjtion may perhaps have been taken after death, which 

 would account for the face being put down as black. 



Among Mr. Rothschild's collection is a female gnenon from West .'Africa, which 

 is certainly identical with (Jray's pli/fo (of which, by the way, there is a second, flat 

 skin in the British Museum), bnt has the face dark violet. The light frontal band 

 seems scarcely distinguishable in colour from the whiskers. 



