SIMIAD&. 451 



and middle sacculi serve as receptacles for a great mass of aliment (quantity 

 making up for relative deficiency of nutriment) taken in at once, and so 

 carried off to be digested at leisure ; in order to which, being a soft mass, 

 it would be gradually transmitted into the true digestic portion, there to be 

 elaborated. It is possible, indeed, that, under some circumstances, regur- 

 gitation* and rumination may take place, as is occasionally observed in 

 the Kangaroo. 



It has been long known that bezoar stones have been obtained from 

 the stomachs of Monkeys ; but it is in the stomachs of the Semnopitheci 

 only (especially of the Douc) that these concretions are found ; a point 

 of interest, as we meet with them again in the stomachs of the Rumi- 

 nantia. In Deer, Goats, Antelopes, &c., bezoar stones are far from 

 being uncommon ; and it is in complicated stomachs alone that we have 

 reason to suppose their formation. The coincidence, in this point, 

 between the Semnopitheci and the Ruminantia, seeing that there is 

 an analogy between them, in the complicated form of the stomach, is 

 very interesting. The bezoar stones obtained from Monkeys are 

 deemed more valuable in the East than those of any of the ruminants ; 

 and are believed to possess peculiar medicinal properties. 



As regards the absence of cheek-pouches throughout the Semnopitheci, 

 it may be here observed that Geoffroy St. Hilaire, among the characters 

 laid down by him, of the genus Nasalis, for the reception of the Proboscis 

 Monkey (a Semnopithecus), enumerates these organs as present. (See 

 his Tableau des Quadrumanes, in Annales du Mus. d'Hist. Nat. 1812). 



It does not appear on what authority he founded his opinion ; unless, 

 indeed, on the observations of Wurmb, that " there is beneath the skin a 

 sac which extends from the lower jaw to the clavicles ;" evidently meaning 

 the laryngal sac ; but to this Geoffroy makes no allusion, and of the true 

 nature of the structure alluded to by Wurmb, from his silence respecting it, 

 he was evidently unaware. That there are neither cheek-pouches, nor traces 

 of them, in the Proboscis Monkey, the Author's dissection of the animal has 

 enabled him to affirm. In his Cours de VHistoire Naturelle, published 

 in 1828, Geoffroy consents to merge his genus Nasalis into Semnopithecus, 

 observing, " Cependant, il ne nous parait encore demon tre que le singe 

 nasique soit une veritable Semnopitheque, et il est fort possible que 



* Such an action, obser'ves Professor Owen, 'is " likely to take place, occasionally at least, in 

 animals which possess the complicated stomach here described ; and there is a provision in these 

 stomachs, for the passage of ruminated food, or of such as is of a fluid, or easily digestible nature, directly 

 into the second, or sacculated division. A ridge is continued along the pyloric side of the cardiac ori- 

 fice, obliquely, to the fold in the middle division, which is situated next beyond the constriction ; a 

 second ridge is continued from the right side of the cardiac, into the lower part of the septum that 

 separates the cardiac from the middle compartment, and, consequently, between these ridges a shallow 

 canal is continued, from the oesophagus to the middle division of the stomach. Supposing the circular 

 fibres, which form the two ridges, to contract simultaneously with those forming the constriction above, 

 then the communication between the oesophagus and middle division of the stomach would be cut off; 

 but, on the other hand, if these fibres were relaxed, the food, and especially liquid food, would pass 

 along the oblique canal directly into the middle compartment." 



