98 
NATURAL Al STORY. 
with its snowy beard and venerable aspect. Its disposition is gentle and confiding ; it is in the 
highest degree sensible of kindness, and eager for endearing attentions, uttering a low plaintive cry 
when its sympathies are excited. It is particularly cleanly in its habits when domesticated, and spends 
much of its time in cleaning its fur, and carefully divesting it of the least particle of dust. 
The Nestor is about sixteen inches in length (the body and head), and the tail measures twenty 
inches. The prevailing colour is a deep grey, with a slight tinge of brown, becoming paler on the 
back of the neck and on the tail, where the previous tinge is more marked. The hands and lower part 
of the limbs are nearly black. Its lips, chin, and whiskers are nearly pure white, the tips of the 
latter, which are brushed backwards, being grey. There is a still' ridge of black hairs over the eyebrows, 
and they are about an inch and a half in length. The moderate length of the hairs, the light colour 
and the white of the lower sides of the face, are distinctive. It inhabits the southern and western 
provinces of Ceylon, and is found at a higher elevation than even 1,300 feet. 
THE MAIIA, TIIE GREAT WANDEROO* 
This is a larger Monkey than the last, and lives in the hills higher up the country of Ceylon than 
the Nestor. It is wilder and more powerful than its lowland neighbour, and is rarely seen by 
Europeans. It clings to the deep woods, and seldom approaches the few roads which have been made 
through these solitudes. There is a good deal of the Bear in its general appearance, and Major Forbes, 
travelling in Ceylon, noticed this first of all. He says: — “A species of very large Monkey, that 
passed some distance before me, when resting on all-fours looked so like a Ceylon Bear that I took him 
for one.” Hence the name Ursinus. 
Another very rare Monkey in Ceylon is, for some hidden cause, named Semnopithecus Thersit.es. 
Thersites was the most ugly and the most impudent talker of the Greeks before Troy, and probably this 
Monkey is ugly and impudent in the extreme. It is deficient in the head-tuft, which adds to the beauty 
of the genus ; but its temper is good, and it is grateful. One which was caught was fond of being noticed 
and petted, stretching out his limbs in succession to be scratched, drawing himself up so that his ribs 
might be readied by the finger, and closing his eyes during the operation, evincing his satisfaction by 
grimaces absolutely ludicrous. He was fond of fresh vegetables, plantains, and fruit, and ate freely of 
boiled rice, beans, and grain. 
The last Ceylonese Monkey to be noticed is the Semnopithecus Priamus. 
It inhabits the northern and eastern provinces, and the wooded hills which occur in those portions 
of the island. In appearance it differs both in size and in colour from the common Wanderoo 
(S. Nestor ), being larger and greyer, and its habits arc much less reserved. Where the population 
is comparatively numerous, these Monkeys become so familiarised with the presence of man as to 
exhibit the utmost daring and indifference. A flock of them will take possession of a Palmyra 
palm, and so effectually can they crowd and conceal themselves among the leaves that, on the slightest 
danger, the whole party becomes invisible on the instant. The presence of a Hog, however, exites 
such an irrepressible curiosity, that, in order to watch his movements, they never fail to betray 
themselves. They may be seen frequently congregated on the roof of a native hut ; and some years 
ago the child of a European clergyman having been left on the ground by the nurse, was so teased 
and bitten by them as to cause its death. The Ceylon people hold the singular belief that the 
remains of a Monkey are never found in the forest — a belief which they have embodied in a proverb, 
that u He who has seen a white crow, the nest of the piddybird, a straight cocoa-nut tree, or a dead 
Monkey, is certain to live for ever.” “ This piece of folk-lore has evidently reached Ceylon from 
India,” writes Sir J. Emerson Tennent, from whose work the extract is taken, “ where it is believed 
that persons dwelling on the spot where a Hoonuman Monkey (Semnopithecus enfellus) has been 
killed, will die, and that even its bones are unlucky, and that no house erected where they are hid 
will prosper. Hence, when a house is to be built, one of the employments of wise men is to ascertain 
by their science that none such are concealed ; and Buchanan observes that it is perhaps owing to the 
fear of this ill-luck that no native will acknowledge having seen a dead IToonuman.” 
Sir J. Emerson Tennent describes the method in which these Priamus Monkeys attack a garden, 
Semnopithecus u rsinus. 
