Tub Monkeys. ^MAMMALIA. The Hoonu.man. 27 
monkey — the old males measuring nearly five feet in 
height — of a yellowish or greyish-white colour, darker 
on the back, limbs, and tail, and with the face and 
hands black. The hair above the eyebrows forms a 
sort of projecting fillet across the front of the head ; 
the face is bordered on each side with light whiskers, 
and the chin is furnished with a beard, which is peaked 
and directed forwards. As the animals increase in 
age the fur becomes darker, until it is of a nearly uni- 
form rusty brown colour. 
The hoouuman is an exceedingly abundant monkey 
in India, especially in Bengal. During the summer it 
migrates northwards into the hills, travelling as far as 
Nepaul, and even to the elevated plain of Boutan. It 
is regarded with great veneration by the Hindoos, who 
have even deified it, and assigned it a high place in 
their almost innumerable multitude of gods. They 
look upon the destruction of a hoonuman with the 
greatest horror, and believe that the perpetrator of 
such a crime will certainly die within a year after its 
commission. M. Duvaucel, from whom we have already 
quoted, gives an amusing account of the difficulty which 
he experienced in obtaining specimens, in consequence 
of this superstitious feeling. As soon as he was seen 
abroad with his gun, he was surrounded by crowds of 
natives, who employed themselves assiduously in chas- 
ing the monkeys out of gunshot ; and during a whole 
month that a small family of hoonumans remained at 
Chandernagore, where he was residing, his house was 
constantly surrounded by Brahmins, who tormented 
him by incessantly beating tomtoms and drums to scare 
the four-handed divinities from so dangerous a neigh- 
bourhood. On entering the holy city of Goalpara, he 
saw the trees everywhere covered with these long-tailed 
deities, which immediately fled with loud cries, whilst 
a dozen Hindoos surrounded the traveller and endea- 
voured to impress upon him the danger he would incur 
by molesting or injuring animals which were nothing 
less than metamorphosed princes and heroes. Passing 
on, however, he says he met a princess so seductive 
that he could not resist the temptation of cultivating a 
nearer acquaintance with her. He levelled his gun and 
fired ; but then, to quote his own words, he “ became 
witness of a scene which was truly touching and 
pathetic. The poor animal, which had a young one 
on her back, had been hit near the heart; feeling her- 
self mortally wounded, she collected all her remaining 
force for the effort, seized her young one, and was just 
able to throw it up into the branches of a neighbouring 
tree, before she fell and expired at his feet. An inci- 
dent so touching,” adds M. Duvaucel, “ made a greater 
impression on me than all the discourses of the Brah- 
mins ; and the pleasure of obtaining a specimen of so 
beautiful an animal, was, for once, incapable of con- 
tending against the regret which I felt for having killed 
a creature which appeared to be bound to life only by 
the most estimable and praiseworthy feelings.” 
As might be anticipated, these monkeys, being pro- 
tected from all injury by the superstitions of the 
inhabitants, abound to such an extent, and feel so little 
fear of man, that they become a positive nuisance to 
those whose minds are not so constituted as to enable 
them to regard the hoonuman in the light of a divinit3^ 
They take up their abode in the topes or groves of trees 
which the Hindoos plant around their villages, and are 
often so numerous in the towns that Sir James Forbes 
considered that in Dhuboy there were more monkeys 
than human inhabitants. They visit the houses of 
the natives, who willingly provide them with food ; 
and in the villages they often plunder the peasants, 
who, however, regard their visits as a high honour. 
At Dhuboy, according to Forbes, the roofs of the houses 
seemed to be entirely appropriated to the accommoda- 
tion of the monkeys, and the same writer gives a ludi- 
crous account of his having been compelled to remove 
from a shady verandah, in consequence of the pertina- 
cious pelting administered to him with fragments of 
tiles and mortar from the roof of an opposite house by 
these animals. He also describes a curious mode of 
revenge sometimes adopted by the Hindoos of that 
town, in which the hoonumans are the principal agents. 
It appears that before the commencement of the rains, 
about the middle of June, it is usual to turn all the 
tiles on the roofs of the houses. The tiles are not 
fixed with mortar, but accurately adjusted one over 
the other, so that, if this operation is per''ormed just 
before the setting in of the rains, the roof will be water- 
tight during the wet season, and afterwards a few gaps 
are of little consequence. It is at this period, when 
the tiles have been turned and the first rains are hourly 
expected, that the Hindoo who has a grudge to gratify 
repairs at night to the house of his adversary, and 
strews a quantity of grain over the roof. This is soon 
discovered by the monkeys, who assemble in great 
numbers to pick up their favourite food ; and, as much 
of the grain naturally falls between the tiles, they soon 
nearly unroof the house in their efforts to get at it. 
In other respects they appear to be exceedingly 
mischievous and destructive. They often descend in 
troops upon the cultivated fields; and it is said that 
when the troop is pretty numerous, they will strip a 
maize field of moderate size in a few hours. The dis- 
position of the males, also, is described as so libidinous, 
that it is not safe for a woman to pass their haunts. 
The only return they make for all the damage they do, 
and all the kindness shown them by the natives, is 
that, according to Forbes, they frequently destroy 
poisonous snakes. They seize them by the neck when 
asleep, and then, “running to the nearest flat stone, 
grind down the head by a strong friction on the sur- 
face, frequently looking at it, and grinning at their 
progress. When convinced that the venomous fangs 
are destroyed, they toss the reptile to their young ones 
to play with, and seem to rejoice in the destruction of 
the common enemy.” The tigers and other carnivor- 
ous quadrupeds of India, having no such scruples as 
those of the human inhabitants of the country, are said 
to wage a constant war with the hoonumans. The 
tiger is described as taking up a position at the foot of 
the tree in which the monkeys have taken refuge, when 
his roaring so frightens them that they tumble down 
and he devours them at his leisure. 
The cause of the veneration in which the hoonuman 
is held by the Hindoos, which, indeed, is also extended, 
although in a less degree, to other monkeys, is doubt- 
less partly to be ascribed to the Brahminical doctrine 
