6 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. I. 



as large as our English spaniel dogs, of a darkish grey- 

 colour, and black faces with great white beards round 

 from ear to ear, which makes them show just like old 

 men. This sort does but little mischief, keeping in the 

 woods, eating only leaves and buds of trees, but when 

 they are catched they will eat anything." 1 



Knox, whose experience during his long captivity was 

 confined almost exclusively to the hill country around 

 Kandy, spoke in all probability of one large and com- 

 paratively powerful species, Presbytes ursinus, which 

 inhabits the lofty forests, and which, as well as another 

 of the same group, P. Ther sites, was, till recently, un- 

 known to European naturalists. The Singhalese word 

 Ouandura has a generic sense, and being in every 

 respect the equivalent for our own term of " monkey," 

 it necessarily comprehends the low country species, as 

 well as those which inhabit other parts of the island. 

 In point of fact, there are no less than four animals 

 in the island, each of which is entitled to the name of 

 " wanderoo." 2 Each separate species has appropriated 



1 Knox, Historical Belation of Europe ; but in the absence of in- 

 Ceylon, an Island in the East In- formation in this country as to 

 dies. — P. i. ch. vi. p. 25. Fol. their actual habitat, they were de- 

 Lond. 1681. See an account of his scribed, first by Zimmerman, on 

 captivity in Sir J. Emerson Ten- the continent, under the name of 

 nent's Ceylon, etc., Vol. II. p. Leucoprymnus cephalopterus, and 

 66 n. subsequently by Mr. E. Bennett, 



2 Down to a very late period, a under that of Semnopithecus Nestor 

 large and somewhat repulsive-look- (Proc. Zool. Soc. pt. i. p. 67 : 1833) ; 

 ing monkey, common to the Mala- the generic and specific characters 

 bar coast, the Silenus veter, Linn., being on this occasion most care- 

 was, from the circumstance of his fully pointed out by that eminent 

 possessing a " great white beard," naturalist. Eleven years later Dr. 

 incorrectly assumed to be the Templeton forwarded to the Zoo- 

 " wanderoo " of Ceylon, described logical Society a description, ac- 

 by Knox ; and under that usurped companied by drawings, of the 

 name it has figured in every author wanderoo of the western maritime 

 from Buffon to the present time, districts of Ceylon, and noticed 

 Specimens of the true Singhalese the fact that the wanderoo of au- 

 species were, however, received in thors (S. veter) was not to be found 



