238 ON THE HABITS OF CYNOCEPHALUS ANUBIS. [JunC 23, 



The Secretary read the following letter addressed to Dr. Gray by 

 Mr. L. A. Monteiro relating to the habits of Cynocephalus anubis : — 



"29 Harewood Square, N.W., 

 June 1863. 



" Dear Sir, — In fulfilment of my promise, 1 beg to hand you 

 the following notice, as the substance of what my son Joachim J. 

 Monteiro has written to me upon the two Apes, Cynocephalus anubis 

 male and female, presented by him to the British Museum. 



" It seems that the aspect of their native place or habitat about 

 Cuio Bay, in Angola (a Portuguese possession on the western coast 

 of Africa), is very different from that in which other Monkeys on that 

 coast are placed, and, as he thinks, even different from the rest of 

 the world, the difference being in the great scarcity of vegetation 

 and the absence of water. 



" The geological formation seems to be gneiss ; the littoral region 

 a narrow belt of gypsum and limestone rocks. The whole distance of 

 fifty or sixty miles inland is hilly, and cut up in all directions by deep, 

 dry, and solitary gullies and grand rocky ravines. 



" The vegetation is restricted to dry prickly shrubs, a few roots of 

 grass, and certain species of thick club-stemmed dwarf shrubs, all 

 bearing a few leaves only during the few months of the year in 

 which rain falls ; the rest of the year nothing is seen but dry rock 

 and leafless firewood, scorched and burnt month after month by the 

 constant tropical sun. At distances far apart, brackish water is spa- 

 ringly obtained by Zebras, these Monkeys, and other animals, by 

 excavating holes in the sand at the bottom of the gullies. 



" The principal food of these Apes is the root and stem of the 

 thick tuber-rooted shrubs [Welwifschial] above mentioned. Part 

 of the root of these plants grows above the surface of the ground ; 

 and these Monkeys gnaw it off as a sheep does a turnip or mangel- 

 \vurzel, their dog-like elongated jaws and perhaps dentition appear- 

 ing to him specially adapted to this manner of feeding. 



" They are gregarious : he once counted fifteen together ; and 

 a few days previously to his writing, not less than thirty to forty came 

 down to drink at a well he had opened at the copper-mines. He was 

 then engaged in exploring at about four miles inland from Cuio Bay. 

 Two were captured alive at Equemina, a place twelve miles south. 



"They run very fast, on all fours, in a kind of sideway gallop, the 

 young ones holding on to the backs of the dams. 



" It seems that he had not been able to ascertain exactly their 

 geographical distribution either in longitude or latitude from the bay, 

 though he believes it does not reach northward of the River Quanza. 



" It perhaps deserves to be mentioned that in the vicinity of the 

 rivers in that part of the coast the vegetation assumes a more luxu- 

 riant character ; but these rivers being but few and far apart, this 

 does not alter the dry, bare character of the country where these 

 Monkeys abound. 



" The natives and Portuguese about these parts affirm that a troop 

 of these Monkeys is ahvays preceded by several scouts, which commu- 

 nicate by signals either danger or safety to the rest, and that these 



