Chap. L] 
MONKEYS. 
9 
they may have descended to recover seeds or fruit 
which have fallen at the foot of their favourite trees. 
When disturbed, their leaps are prodigious : but, ge- 
nerally speaking, their progress is made not so much 
by leaping as by swinging from branch to branch, 
using their powerful arms alternately ; and when 
baffled by distance, flinging themselves obliquely so as 
to catch the lower boughs of an opposite tree, the mo- 
mentum acquired by their descent being sufficient to 
cause a rebound of the branch, that carries them up- 
wards again, till they can grasp a higher and more 
distant one, and thus continue their headlong flight. In 
these perilous achievements, wonder is excited less by 
the surpassing agility of these little creatures, frequently 
encumbered as they are by their young, which cling to 
them in their career, than by the quickness of their eye 
and the unerring accuracy with which they seem almost 
to calculate the angle at which a descent will enable 
them to cover a given distance, and the recoil to attain 
a higher altitude. 
2. The low country Wanderoo is replaced in the hills 
by the larger species, P. ur sinus, which inhabits the 
mountain zone. The natives, who designate the latter 
the Maha or Great Wanderoo, to distinguish it from 
the Kaloo, or black one, with which they are familiar, 
describe it as much wilder and more powerful than its 
congener of the lowland forests. It is rarely seen by 
Europeans, this portion of the country having till very 
recently been but partially opened ; and even now it is 
difficult to observe its habits, as it seldom approaches 
the few roads which wind through these deep solitudes. 
At early morning, ere the day begins to dawn, its loud 
and peculiar howl, which consists of a quick repetition 
