84 APES, MONKEYS, AND LEMURS 



arms and lower legs, being grayish-yellow. The forehead is very low, and the 

 dark chestnut hair is directed backwards from a nearly straight line immediately 

 over the eyes ; while the hair of the temples is continued down the sides of the 

 face as whiskers, which meet as a beard beneath the chin. The whole of the large 

 naked face is, therefore, surrounded by a hairy frame. In stuffed or dried 

 specimens the skin of the face fades to a dull leaden hue ; but when the animal is 

 alive the tint is of a reddish-brown flesh color. 



The light-colored area on the loins near the root of the tail usually takes the 

 form of a number of large rectangular spots, producing a very peculiar and 

 characteristic kind of coloration, which is, however, absent in the female. 



The enormous nose, from which the proboscis monkey derives both its popular 

 and scientific appellations, projects several inches in front of the mouth, with the 

 nostrils placed on its under surface, although separated by a much narrower septum 

 than in man. This excessive development of the nose is, however, only reached 

 in the adult male ; it being much less throughout life in the female, while in the 

 young of both sexes it is comparatively small, and upturned as in the Tibetan 

 langur. 



No living examples of the proboscis monkey have, we believe, been exhibited 

 in England, and accounts of its habits in the wild condition are few. The fol- 

 lowing extracts are taken from a translation of the original account given by 

 Baron Wurmb. After stating that these monkeys are found in large troops, the 

 author says that, ' ' They assemble together morning and evening, at the rising and 

 setting of the sun, and always on the banks of some stream or river ; there they 

 may be seen seated on the branches of some great tree, or leaping with astonishing 

 force and rapidity from one tree or branch to another, at the distance of fifteen or 

 twenty feet. It is a curious and interesting sight ; but I have never remarked, as 

 the accounts of the natives would have you believe, that they hold their long nose 

 in the act of jumping ; on the contrary, I have uniformly observed that on such 

 occasions they extend the legs and arms to as great a distance as possible, 

 apparently for the purpose of presenting as large a surface as they can to the 

 atmosphere. The nature of their food is unknown, which renders it impossible to 

 keep them alive in a state of confinement. ' ' 



THE THUMBLESS MONKEYS 

 Genus Colobus 



The langurs, which as we have seen are widely distributed over Southeastern 

 Asia, and more especially that portion forming the Oriental Region of zoologists, 

 are replaced in Africa by a group of monkeys closely allied to them in all respects, 

 but distinguished either by the total absence, or rudimentary condition, of the 

 thumb. When present at all this digit merely takes the form of a s=mall tubercle, 

 which may or may not be provided with a minute nail. Such a point of difference 

 from the langurs is rightly regarded as worthy of generic distinction, and these 



