112 APES AND MOXKEYS. 



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

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

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

 iloubt whatever as to the crustacean-devouring procli\ities of tliis 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 boily of a crab. There is not much on recoi-d conceniing the 

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

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

 saTiderljans." According to Colonel Tickell, as (juoted by iMr. Blanford. the crab- 

 eating macaque is common on the tidal creeks and livei-sof Burma and Tenasserim, 





THE UON-TAILED MONKEY (^L Uat. sizc). 



especially in the delta of the Irawadi. They go usually in small family pai-tiep 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 Ixiughs 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. 

 Ml". Blanford tells us, pick up rice or fniit thrown down to them. Still more 

 i-emarkable is the facility witli 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 fift}^ yards, in order to prevent recapture. Like most macaques, this species 

 is gentle if captured at a sufficiently eai-ly age, but the old males always become 



