486 QUADRUMANA. 



tolerably gentle and confiding, as far as concerned those from whom it 

 was accustomed to receive its food ; but toward strangers it manifested 

 moroseness and distrust, and threatened with its teeth, when attempts were 

 made to court its familiarity. This moroseness, had the animal completed 

 its maturity, would, doubtless, have increased, as is the case with all the 

 Semnopitheci, which, in adolescence, are sportful, fond, and pleasing ; but 

 which, when adult, and especially when advanced in life, become savage, 

 and, from their long canines, very dangerous. 



No information relative to the economy of the Semn. cephalopterus in 

 a state of natural freedom has been obtained. It may be presumed, 

 however, that, in the vast forests of Ceylon, it associates in troops, feeding 

 on the fruits which abound in that luxuriant island. 



THE DUSKY MONKEY. 



SEMNOPITHECUS OBSCURUS. (Semnopithecus obscurus, REID, in Proceed. Zool. Soc. p. 14. 1837.) 



Semnopithecus leucomystax . . . TEMMINCK, in MSS. (?) 

 Semnopithecus obscurus Cat. Mamm. Zool. Soc. 1 838. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. General colour, sooty black, passing into dusky grey below ; 



occiput with long hairs of a greyish brown colour ; tail, dusky grey; hairs of upper 



lip and chin, white. 

 COUNTRY. District adjacent to Singapore, in the Malay Peninsula. 



DESCRIPTION. The following details are taken from the original spe- 

 cimen, on which Mr. Reid founded the species, in the museum of the 

 Zoological Society, (No. 21, of Catalogue, Mamm., 1838), and also from 

 some fine specimens brought, in 1840, from Singapore, by H. Cuming, 

 Esq., and presented by him to the same museum, (No. 21 a & b, of 

 MS. App. to Cat.) The general colour is sooty black, inclining, on 

 the shoulders, haunches, and central line of the back, to greyish, or to 

 brownish black ; the fur being long, flowing, and rather glossy : the hair 

 of the head is directed backward ; that on the occiput being very long, 

 and lying like a crest, on the neck ; the colour of this occipital crest is 

 always of a paler hue than that of the body and forehead, and is some- 

 times of a greyish, sometimes of a pale brown tint ; on the forehead the 

 hairs are nearly black, and a row of long, stiff, black hairs runs along 

 the superciliary ridge ; the whiskers on the sides of the face are long, and 

 directed backward ; they are of the same colour as the body generally, 

 or, perhaps, a little paler : the upper lip is furnished with scanty hairs, of 

 a dirty white colour ; but those about the angles of the mouth are black : 

 a small tuft of dirty white hairs occupies the chin ; the under parts are of 

 a dusky or brownish grey ; the hands and feet are black ; the tail is 

 always of a pale tint, sometimes grey, sometimes of a flaxen or yellowish 

 hue. In a young, half-grown specimen, the general colour is sooty grey, 



