LANGURS. 73 



of two females. I felt that the fight was not a fair one, but was deterred from 

 interfering by a wish to see what the end of the affray would be, and the end, so 

 far as the solitary hanuman was concerned, soon came. Each female flung herself 

 upon him, and though he fought his enemies gallantly, one of the females succeeded 

 in seizing him. Possibly he would have been killed outright had I not been 

 present, but when I saw him so helpless, I interfered on the chance of being able 

 to save him. He was, however, hopelessly mutilated, and before the morning he 

 was dead. Not one of his own troop came to his aid. I presume they were either 

 awed by the array of numbers on the other side, or they had full confidence in 

 their leader. Had they assisted, they might in the end have been better off, for 

 the result of the defeat of their champion was that the whole of the aggressors 

 entered upon a guerilla warfare, and, isolating several of the members of the weaker 

 troop, kept them prisoners under surveillance. Whenever the latter tried to break 

 away, their guards stopped them, and then effectually watched them by occupying 

 every piece of vantage-ground. One female with a young one was most viciously 

 chased, and when, in her efforts to escape her enemies, she climbed to one of the 

 highest limbs of a big tree, those in pursuit actually shook the branch on which 

 she was, and jerked her to the ground. The fall was a nasty one, and she was so 

 badly hurt that in the course of the night she went to swell the list of the f atall y 

 wounded. The defeated troops were thoroughly cowed, for one of the number 

 actually allowed me to approach it quite closely without moving. I certainly do 

 not ascribe the onslaught I saw to sexual excitement. It was plainly an incursion 

 of a stronger troop into the domain of a weaker one ; and, under mistaken counsel, 

 the weaker hesitated too long in yielding their feeding ground." 



THE HIMALAYAN LANGUR (Semnopithecus schistaceus). 



Very closely related to the hanuman is the Himalayan langur (S. schistaceus), 

 so closely indeed that Dr. John Anderson considers it ought only to be reckoned 

 as a variety of that species. In the opinion of Mr. Blanf ord our most recent autho- 

 rity on Indian Mammals it is, however, considered to be entitled to rank as a well- 

 marked species ; and this observer gives the following characters by which it may 

 be distinguished from the hanuman. The Himalayan species is characterised " by 

 being somewhat larger, although there is probably no great ^difference between 

 large individuals of both species, by the head being much paler in colour than the 

 back, and by the feet being but little, if at all, darker than the limbs ; by the 

 smaller ears, and by their being concealed by the long hair of the cheeks ; by the 

 form of the skull." 



This species is found throughout the greater part of the Himalaya proper, 

 ranging from Bhutan in the south-east to the Kashmir valley and adjacent regions 

 in the north-west. It appears not to be found below five thousand feet, and 

 in the interior of Sikhim it ranges as high as twelve thousand feet. One of the 

 first, if not actually the first record of the occurrence of the Himalayan langur 

 in the interior of Sikhim will be found in Sir J. W. Hooker's Himalayan Journals. 

 The author of that charming book of travel says, on arriving at a Tatar village, at an 

 elevation of about nine thousand feet, " I saw a troop of large monkeys gamboling 



