264 A FATAL AFFRAY. 



has arisen as to the habits of the Monkeys of Ceylon and the 

 adjacent continent. 



Father Vincent Maria gives a very quaint and amusing ac- 

 count of this Monkey, which he describes as quite black, with 

 glossy hair, and a white beard round the chin. " The other 

 Monkeys," he says, " pay to these so profound a respect that 

 they are humbled in his presence as though they appreciated his 

 superiority. The princes and mighty lords hold him in much 

 estimation for his endowment of gravity, capacity, and the ap- 

 pearance of wisdom above every other Monkey. He is readily 

 trained to enact a variety of ceremonies and affected courtesies, 

 which he goes through with so grave a face, and so perfectly, that 

 it is a most wonderful thing to see them so exactly performed by 

 so irrational a creature." No doubt the gravity of this most 

 grave and sapient of Monkeys is greatly enhanced by his snowy 

 beard and whiskers. 



The Bhunder (Macacus rhesus), another of these short-tailed 

 Monkeys, is a native of India, and is very abundant on the banks 

 of the Ganges, where it is greatly reverenced by the Hindoos. 

 In the district of Cooch Bahar, a large tract of country is con- 

 sidered by the natives as in part the property of these Monkeys ; 

 and therefore when they cut the grain they leave a tenth part 

 piled in heaps for these creatures, which come down from the 

 hills, and carry off their allotted tithes. Mr. Johnson, in his 

 " Indian Field Sports," informs us that at Bindrabun, a town 

 near the holy city of Muttra, there are more than a hundred fruit 

 gardens cultivated at the expense of the wealthy natives exclu- 

 sively for the advantage of these Monkeys ; and, as an illustration 

 of the extreme veneration with which they are regarded, he 

 mentions that on one occasion two young European officers, who 

 had thoughtlessly fired at a Bhunder, were pelted with stones by 

 the incensed natives, and, with the elephant on which they rode, 

 were driven into the river and drowned. 



The group of Baboon-like Monkeys of which we are now 

 speaking is connected with the more typical Monkeys by a 

 species which, while belonging to the group, exhibits but little 

 of its more characteristic marks. This link in the chain is the 

 Toque (Macacus radiatus), one of the commonest inmates of our 

 menageries, and to be seen in every caravan of " wild beasts." 

 Not one of our readers but knows it well, though not perhaps 



