112 



APES AND MONKEYS. 



and take to a diet of crabs and insects it is difficult to conceive ; unless, indeed, they 

 may have been driven to it during a season of scarcity, and found it so much to 

 their liking that they have continued it ever since. Be this as it may, there is no 

 doubt whatever as to the crustacean-devouring proclivities of this species. For 

 instance, Sir Arthur Phayre mentions that " these monkeys frequent the banks of 

 salt-water creeks and devour shell-fish. In the cheek-pouches of a female were 

 found the claws and body of a crab. There is not much on record concerning the 

 habits of this monkey in its wild state beyond what is stated concerning its 

 partiality for crabs, which can also, I believe, be said of the rhesus in the Bengal 

 sanderbans." According to Colonel Tickell, as quoted by Mr. Blanford, the crab- 

 eating macaque is common on the tidal creeks and rivers of Burma and Tenasserim, 



THE LION-TAILED MONKEY ( T V nat. size). 



especially in the delta of the Irawadi. They go usually in small family parties of from 

 five to fifteen individuals, including an old male and four or five females with their 

 offspring. Their home is among the roots and boughs of the mangrove trees, and 

 they spend a large portion of their time in searching for insects and crabs. From 

 the constant presence of human beings on the water-ways near which they dwell, 

 these monkeys become very tame, and can be easily approached. They will even, 

 Mr. Blanford tells us, pick up rice or fruit thrown down to them. Still more 

 remarkable is the facility with which they can swim and dive. Colonel Tickell 

 states that on one occasion a male of this species that had been wounded and placed 

 for security in a boat, jumped overboard and dived several times over to a distance 

 of some fifty yards, in order to prevent recapture. Like most macaques, this species 

 is gentle if captured at a sufficiently early age, but the old males always become 



