1843.] Asiatic Society. 173 



the young may often be seen together in the shops of the Calcutta dealers, being all 

 of one size and colour at any given time, and when about a quarter grown they may 

 be described as having the head (except where naked), and the under-parts generally, 

 much paler than the back, the hue of which is best expressed by the term — a light 

 dingy isabella-colour; tail somewhat darker, its terminal third pale in some, while 

 others have the whole tail pale; limbs slightly washed with greyish chiefly below the 

 elbow and knee, and the fore-arm somewhat darker; the hands and feet nigrescent, 

 more developed on the former than on the latter. The palest adult male that I have 

 met with only differs in having these colours more distinctly brought out, and conse- 

 quently contrasting, the entire hands and feet being conspicuously deep black, and a 

 large lengthened space on the croup (scarcely traceable in the small young), being of 

 a light chocolate-brown differing from the rest. A nearly half-grown young specimen 

 has the shoulders, sides, humeri, and greater part of the thighs, of the same very pale 

 colour as the head, and the moderately dark croup-patch well developed and strongly 

 contrasting: another of the same size merely differs in having the croup-patch less 

 defined, and spreading faintly over the shoulders and humeri; the blackish on the 

 hands and feet increasing in intensity. Finally, the dark female (which, it may 

 again be noticed, is much older than the male, having her teeth worn down to stumps, 

 whereas those of the male already described, as also those of another male nearly as 

 dark as the female, are quite entire, though I nevertheless have reason to suspect that 

 these animals become darker with age,) has merely the colours generally much 

 darkened, the hue of the croup spreading, but less deeply than on that part, over 

 nearly the whole upper (or rather hinder) parts, being nearly identical with that of 

 the fore-arm and leg, which are in part as dark as the croup itself; tail still darker for 

 three-quarters of its length, but then paling to the tip ; and the hair of the under-parts 

 below the nipples deeply and very conspicuously tinged with orange-brown; hands 

 and feet black (i. e. the hair of their upper surface as well as the palms and soles), as 

 described. The visage of the male is much larger, with the muzzle more protruding, 

 than in the other sex ; the pair having a strongly characterized masculine and feminine 

 expression. 



From a passage in Moor's Hindu Pantheon (p. 320), it would seem that the 

 Hoonuman has not unfrequently twin offspring ; that author mentioning their scam- 

 pering over the fields and hedges, when put to rout by the appearance of a stranger, 

 "some with a young one under the arm, and a second clinging to the neck. The 

 most numerous hordes of Monkeys," he continues, "that I ever saw were on the 

 banks of the Jyghur river, between Bombay and Goa. In Guzerat, Apes [Monkeys] 

 abound." The Hoonuman always descends from the trees upon alarm, at least where 

 the ground is sufficiently open for them to make their way upon it (and I doubt 

 whether they are elsewhere met with), and it should perhaps be added when no four- 

 footed enemy awaits them there, from the pursuit of which they are secure above. 

 The Tiger is known to make a frequent prey of them, and I imagine more commonly 

 pounces on them when on the ground, than avails himself of the stratagem mentioned 

 by Dr. Fryer and Mr. Forbes.* Upon the approach of a human stranger, in 

 European dress, they certainly always trust to their speed on the ground for security, 

 and it is a beautiful sight to observe them fast scampering away, with the tail raised 

 • Vide Forbes's ' Oriental Memoirs.' 



