528 QUADRUMANA. 



with alternate rings of red and black, the latter being the colour of the 

 apex ; the shoulders, the haunches, the anterior and posterior limbs, ex- 

 ternally, and the tail, are of a deep dusky black, a white spot being seated 

 on each side of the base of the latter, and the thighs being slightly freckled 

 with red ; the under surface of the body, and the inside of the limbs, are 

 of a pure white, separated from the adjoining colours by an abrupt line of 

 demarcation ; above the eyebrows a transverse black band extends on each 

 side, as far as the ears ; and this, again, is surmounted by a whitish, narrow, 

 crescentic stripe, more apparent in some individuals than in others ; the skin 

 of the orbits and cheeks is bluish purple, the upper and under lips flesh- 

 coloured ; on the sides of the face, large bushy whiskers, of a straw 

 yellow, slightly tinged with black, advance forward, and extend over a 

 considerable portion of the cheeks ; they also cover the sides and lower 

 part of the neck ; the ears and hands are of a livid flesh colour. 



ft. in. 



Length of head and body 1 8| 



Ditto tail 1 11 



GENERAL HISTORY. The term Mone, or Mona, is of Arabic origin, 

 and is the Moorish name for all the long-tailed Monkeys indiscriminately. 

 " Reperiuntur in Mauritania sylvis simiarum varies species, quarum quae 

 caudam gerunt Monae dicuntur," \Leo Afric. Desc. Afric., vol. ii. p. 757. 

 In Egypt, according to Prosper Alpinus, the same animals are termed 

 Monichi, evidently a corruption of the Moorish name.* From Northern 

 Africa the term Mona passed into Spain, Portugal, and Provence, where 

 it is the common name for any of the long-tailed Monkeys ; nor has it 

 stopped here ; it is evidently the root of our word Monkey, which has 

 exactly the same meaning, being only applied to the long-tailed species 

 of Simia, but which is supposed, by some, to be a corruption of the word 

 Monikin, or Manikin, in which case it would be more appropriately applied 

 to the tail-less species. -\ 



Be this as it may, the exclusive application of the title Mone, as 

 Buffon has corrupted it, or Mona, to the present species, is entirely 

 arbitrary ; nor can any stress be laid on his opinion that the Mona is the 

 Cebus, or Kebos, of the ancients. (See observations in description of Patas.) 

 Of the habits and manners of the Mona, in a state of nature, nothing 

 is definitely known. It bears our climate better than most of its 



* " Simii caudati et barbati qui vulgo Monichi vocantur. Monichi, Simii caudati, et barbati, ex 

 JEthiopiae locis conterminis in jEgyptum deducunter." Prosper Alpinus, Hist. JEgypt. lib. iv. p. 242. 



t It is not too much to suppose that with the animals imported by sailors from various parts of 

 Northern Africa, was also imported the name by which they were known to the people from whom 

 they were obtained. Nor must we forget the influence which the Moorish nation exercised upon 

 Southern Europe in the middle ages ; nor the influx of Arabic words, into all parts of Europe, with the 

 return of the Crusaders Besides, it seems to be going out of the way to seek, in our own language, 

 for the origin of the name of a foreign animal, with which our Saxon forefathers, and, indeed, our- 

 selves, till at a comparatively late period, were unacquainted. 



