MAMMALS 9 



The males of this species are very savage, and a 

 friend of mine, who hunted all sorts and conditions of 

 jungle animals with a pack of mongrel dogs, told me 

 that the male Brok was the most dangerous of all to 

 tackle ; when at bay they stand with their backs to a 

 tree, and seizing the dogs with hands or feet slash and 

 tear them with their terrible canine teeth, sometimes 

 almost disembowelling them. The Brok goes about in 

 droves, a big male leading ; but often solitary males are 

 to be found, and these, I expect, have been driven from 

 the leadership of their droves by younger and more 

 powerful rivals, It must be these solitary males only, 

 or " Brok tunggal " as the Malays call them, which can 

 be hunted by dogs, for I do not suppose that any pack 

 could deal with a drove. 



M. nemestrinus exhibits a peculiarity in the fine lines 

 on the palmar aspect of the finger-tips which I have not 

 observed in any other species ; the lines, which are 

 arranged in simple loops and not in the complicated 

 patterns characteristic of the human finger, are con- 

 nected here and there by little transverse bridges. 



As a pet 'the Brok is distinctly amusing, but it must 

 be kept in a cage, or chained up, for if allowed full 

 liberty it is, with its congerer, M. cynomolgus, the most 

 wantonly destructive animal of my acquaintance. It 

 lives very well in captivity, but will not breed with 

 females of its own species, though hybrids between 

 the Brok and M. cynomolgus have been produced in 

 menageries more than once. A captive Brok spends a 

 great deal of time in making most hideous grimaces, and 

 in adopting ludicrous attitudes ; it does this apparently 

 for its own amusement. Mr. H. N. Ridley I relates of 

 1 Journ. Roy. As. Soc. S. Br., No. 46 (1906), p. 143. 



