1867.] RANGE OF SEMNOPITHECUS ENTELLUS. 947 



since there is among all these black-faced and long-tailed species so 

 great a general resemblance, that it would be quite impossible, at 

 any distance, for a mere casual observer to say with any degree of 

 certaint}'^ what the animal seen might be. Moreover it is this very 

 confounding of several distinct species in different parts of the 

 country, under the long venerated title of Hoonoomaun, that has 

 led compilers of works on natural history to declare that the range 

 of that species extends from the sea-coast of the southern peninsula 

 up to the northern ranges of the Cis-Himalaya. If, then, the Eu- 

 tellns has ever been seen in Assam, it is not because tbat province 

 forms part of its natural range, but because, as elsewhere, it has been 

 purposely introduced from rehgious motives; but, from all that re- 

 cent Avriters on Assam and Bhotan have observed, I strongly doubt 

 even whether any such introduction of the species has there occurred. 

 The grounds on which its occurrence in Assam has been asserted I 

 shall presently expose to view. How far up the country in a 

 northerly direction the animal maybe found is not easily determined, 

 although I am inclined to doubt its occurrence indigenously higher 

 than Allahabad, at the junction of the Jumna with the Ganges, 

 through which point I would draw as nearly as possible a straight 

 line across the country to the westward, as far as a little below Boon- 

 dee, as the northern limit of its range. South of Boondee, and a few 

 miles above Neemuch, the animal used to occur in a grove surround- 

 ing some Hindoo temples ; but as I never heard of its occurrence 

 elsewhere in the neighbourhood, I suspect it to have been introduced 

 there from Muttra or Biudrabun. 



That the Entellus has sometimes occurred abundantly at Biudra- 

 bun and also at Muttra does not militate against this view, inasnuich 

 as, both being holy cities with hosts of bigoted devotees and fakirs, 

 the animal has been purposely introduced to those localities, where 

 it has always been held in great veneration, and has sometimes mul- 

 tiplied into many thousands in the gardens and groves surrounding 

 the temples, while in the outlying neighbourhood it does not occur 

 at all, except as an occasional straggler from the sacred band. That 

 it is not indigenous there is proved by the fact that, although it has 

 often been introduced, it never lives long in those localities, but from 

 time to time dies out altogether. Johnson, in his ' Indian Field 

 Sports,' tells us that when he visited Bindrabun there were then no 

 monkeys of this species, but only the common brown Bunder or Rhe- 

 sus. Here, then, we have a proof that the animal had been previously 

 introduced and had died out; for Johnson's book was published in 

 1839 ; while in the spring of 1836, only three years before, when I 

 passed a day at Bindrabun, they were numerous. 



Turner in 1800 wrote that he had seen the Entellus at Muttra; 

 in 183(3 I also saw it at Bindrabun; yet in 1839, when Johnson's 

 book was published, there were none left. In 1843 it was again 

 brought into Muttra, and died out in a couple of 3'ears, while I am 

 informed by a gentleman now residing in Muttra that at present, in 

 the current year of IS67, while the Ivhesus swarms there, the En- 

 tellus is altogether absent. 



