FROM BORNEO. 121 



Important addition! 



While the above paper was going through the press, 

 Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis, the Borneo-explorer, was kind 

 enough to furnish me on my request some interesting im- 

 formations, which he allowed me to publish. He wrote to 

 me as follows : 



"Concerning the nose of the Proboscis-Monkey I can 

 tell you, that I don't recollect ever having seen these 

 monkeys holding fast their nose in jumping — and I ob- 

 served a lot of them in their natural state as well as in 

 confinement. Being corpulent and of a calm temperament 

 they very seldom move so quickly like other monkeys do 

 nay not when flying away. The nose plays no special part 

 and is no hinderance at all when they take their food, 

 because the nose, being somewhat stiff, hangs at a certain 

 distance before the mouth. I don't recollect ever having 

 seen one of my monkeys in confinement drinking, very 

 likely as they solely did like to feed upon fresh leaves. I 

 never observed that even large old males occupied them- 

 selves with their nose, neither as if a hinderance nor in 

 other respects. I never saw a striking metamorphosis in 

 the volume or the shape of the nose, always hanging be- 

 fore the mouth of the animal as a somewhat stiff and 

 indifi'erent appendix, nay not when frightened or in fear 

 as I observed them in confinement. In how far the greater 

 development of that organ in the males influences upon 

 the less privileged females I don't know, but I believe 

 having observed that the full possession of females comes 

 by rights to the strongest male. These are my observa- 

 tions, to which I solely have to add, that the Proboscis- 

 Monkey makes the impression as if indolent, not very 

 fearful and rather slow in its movements. Without great 

 risk they are to treat, even fresh captured old males. Ha- 

 ving observed the animals in living state I saw that in 

 about all drawings till now published and in all stuffed 

 specimens, the form of the nose, mostly resembling a piri- 



Notes from the Leyden Minseum, Vol. XXIII. 



