MR.  R.  OWEN  ON  THE  STOMACH  OF  SEMNOPITHECUS. 
69 
What  then  are  the  natural  habits  and  food  of  this  genus  ?  Will  future  observers  of 
these  slow  Monkeys,  as  M.  F.  Cuvier  denominates  them,  be  able  to  ascertain  that  their 
natural  food  is  more  strictly  vegetable  than  that  of  the  Cercopitheci,  S^c.  ?  And  that  like 
the  Sloths  of  the  new  continent,  so  remarkable  for  their  complex  stomachs,  they  also 
crop  the  tender  shoots  and  leaves  of  the  trees  in  which  they  habitually  reside  ?  Cerco- 
pitheci and  Macaci  are  provided  by  nature  with  receptacles  (the  cheek-pouches)  for  storing 
away  ill-gotten  food,  hastily  plucked  from  the  cultivated  grounds  which  they  invade, 
and  which  they  are  thus  enabled  to  carry  off  in  sufficient  quantity,  and  masticate  and 
prepare  for  digestion  in  a  place  of  safety.  The  complicated  stomachs  of  the  timid  Ru- 
minants are  adapted  to  a  similar  end,  allowing  them  to  accumulate  their  requisite 
quantity  of  herbage  from  exposed  pastures,  which  they  then  carry  off  to  more  secure 
situations  and  remasticate  at  leisure.  Now  in  the  Semnopitheci  it  is  remarkable  that 
the  cheek-pouches  are  very  small,  or  are  wanting  altogether.  I  have  often  fed  the  En- 
tellus  Monkey  with  nuts,  and  have  observed  that  while  his  more  fortunate  neighbours, 
the  green  Monkey,  Cercopithecus  Sabaus,  Geoff.,  and  Chinese  bonneted  Monkey,  Macacus 
Sinicus,  La  Cep.,  were  stowing  them  quickly  away  by  the  dozen  into  their  cheek- 
pouches,  he  coald  not  cram  more  than  two  in  the  same  situation,  and  was  equally 
averse  to  swallowing  anything  but  the  kernel.  In  this  case  the  complicated  stomach 
did  not  serve  him  as  a  substitute  ;  but  I  think  it  very  probable  that  it  may  compensate 
for  the  want  of  cheek-pouches,  when  he  is  in  a  situation  to  collect  together  a  quantity 
of  soft  fruits  or  herbs.  In  the  Gardens  of  the  Society  the  Semnopitheci  which  have 
been  there  exhibited,  are  fed  exactly  in  the  same  manner  as  the  other  Monkeys ;  and 
the  keepers  have  not  observed  anything  like  rumination  in  them. 
In  both  the  species  which  I  have  dissected,  where  illness  and  gradual  decay  preceded 
death,  the  stomachs  were  almost  empty. 
With  respect  to  stomachs  of  an  analogous  structure  in  other  animals  of  the  class 
Mammalia,  I  have  hitherto  limited  my  comparisons  to  that  of  the  Kangaroo,  so  well 
known  for  its  remarkable  resemblance  to  a  sacculated  colon  and  ccscum.  Between  this 
animal  and  Semnopithecus  there  is  a  wide  interval  in  the  natural  series.  Stomachs, 
however,  almost  as  complex  as  the  preceding,  are  found  in  animals  much  more  nearly 
allied  to  the  Quadrumana.  In  a  large  Bat  of  the  genus  Pteropus,  Pteropus  rubricollis, 
Geoff.,  I  found  the  cardiac  moiety  divided  into  two  dilated  compartments,  of  which 
the  left  is  again  subdivided,  and  plicated  within,  while  the  pyloric  moiety  is  extended 
in  an  elongated  tortuous  form,  proportionately  exceeding  in  length  that  of  Semnopithecus 
Entellus.  It  is  to  a  Pteropus  doubtless,  and  not  to  a  Vampyrus,  that  is  to  be  attributed 
a  similarly  complicated  stomach  described  and  figured  by  Sir  Everard  Home  as  be- 
longing to  the  Vampyre  Bat,  and  from  which  he  draws  the  rather  hasty  conclusions 
that  "  the  Vampyre  Bat  lives  on  the  sweetest  of  vegetables ;  and  all  the  stories  related 
with  so  much  confidence,  of  its  living  on  blood,  and  coming  in  the  night  to  destroy 
people  while  tasleep,  are  entirely  fabulous."    I  suspect  that  the  stomach  of  the  true 
