72 SIMIID^. 



to me that it is in no way separable from them. The general colour of this Sunder- 

 bund monkey is the same, but the hair on the head shows no tendency to the radiate 

 character which occurred in the Irawady female when alive and in the young male 

 in the Zoological Gardens. But experience of other Macaques, e. g., M. cynomolgus, 

 in which the distribution of the hair on the vertex is most variable, sometimes 

 assuming the form of a radiating tuft, whereas in the generality of specimens it 

 is directed, as a rule, backwards, would seemingly indicate that much reliance 

 cannot be placed on radiation as a specific character, and, moreover, there can be no 

 doubt that the prepared skins of monkeys not unfrequently exhibit radiation on the 

 vertex whilst no such character existed in life. This latter remark I make, not 

 because I am in any doubt regarding the nature of the distribution of the hair 

 on the Sunderbund monkey, but because we do not know how the hair on the vertex 

 of M. problematicus was distributed in life, nor what the characters of this part may 

 have been in the type of M. assamensis when alive, and in M. pelops} 



I shall here summarise the views which have been expressed regarding this 

 species by other zoologists. 



Horsfield relegated M. pelops, Hodgson, to M. assamensis, and Elyth,^ on his 

 authority, at first adopted a similar course; but, writing in 1865, he states that he had 

 examined the original specimen of Jf. assamensis, but could not perceive that it 

 differed in any respect from the common M. rhesus, "excepting that the hind part of 

 the body is not as usual strongly tinged with bright ferruginous or tawny, being 

 uniformly coloured with the rest ; and my present impression (liable to correction) 

 is that it is merely an individual variety of the common animal of Lower Bengal." 

 The late Captain Hutton, on the ground of the supposed diversity of geographical 

 distribution of M. assamensis and M. pelops, recorded it as his opinion that they are 

 totally distinct species. Dr. Jerdon doubtfully regarded the two as identical, and 

 suggested that the monkey figured by Hodgson in his manuscript unpublished 

 drawings as M. sikkimensis might also be the same species. Dr. Sclater in 1868, in 

 referring to M. problematicus, stated that the animal appeared to be M. assamensis, 

 but he hesitated to pass any decided opinion whether it were M. oinops, Hodgson, or 

 Jf. pelops, Hodgson, which could only be determined by an accurate examination of 

 the animal when dead, and comparison of it with Hodgson's type specimens. It 

 seemed, however, to Dr. Sclater to be specifically distinct from the common Ji". rhesus, 

 and in 1871 he again stated that he thought " there could be no question that 

 M'Clelland's M. assamensis belongs to the rhesus group of Macaques, and that it is 

 in all probability the same as the so-called M. problematicus.'^ Dr. Gray included 

 in his catalogue a monkey which he designated M. assamensis, but Dr. Sclater has 

 shown that this identification was erroneous, and that the animal was M. cynomolgus 



1 Dr. Gray regarded the radiation of the hair on the vertex as one of the leading characters of M. pelops, hut 

 Hodgson makes no mention of such a feature, and is careful to record of M. oinops, with which he says M. pelops 

 agrees in structure and aspect, that it does not occur in it ; hut Dr. Gray, on the strength of one of the specimens sent 

 to the British Museum by Hodgson as M. oinops having its hair radiated, referred it to M. pelops. 



2 Journ. As. Soc. Beng., vol. xxxiv. 1865, p. 192. Blyth's latest opinion regarding M. pelops was that it was not 

 unlikely to prove identical with M. tihetanus, A. M. -Edwards, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, xliv. 1875, ex. no. p. 6. 



