STAGGER’S MONKEY. 
Cercopithecus pluto. 
Plate II. 
The genus Cercopithecus, established by Erxleben, in 1777, embraces a well-characterized group of Monkeys 
peculiar to the continent of Africa, and remarkable for their light and vigorous form, lengthened tail, and full 
and soft fur, the colours of which are often elegantly disposed and contrasted. The species of Cercopithecus are 
numerous, upwards of twenty-five being tolerably well ascertained to exist, whilst there are several others, 
which have been more or less imperfectly described, resting on mutilated skins, or materials insufficient for 
comparison. 
The Red Monkey or Patas (Cercopithecus ruber), the Malbrouck ( C. cymsurus), the Grivet (C. griseo-viridis), the 
Yervet ( C. delalandii), the Green Monkey ((7. sabceus), and the beautiful Diana Monkey (C. dicina), are members 
of the genus which are generally living in the Society’s Menagerie, and which are well-known to all students 
of the Quadrumana. On the other hand the Society have occasionally possessed much rarer animals of this 
group, and indeed several which have first become known to science by specimens obtained in a living state 
for its Menagerie. Such was the case with Colonel Sykes’ White-throated Monkey ((7. albogularis), of which two 
examples (out of the only three known to Naturalists) have lived in the Society’s possession; and again with 
the Pluto or Dr. Stanger’s Monkey, which forms the subject of the accompanying plate. 
The Pluto Monkey was first described by Dr. Gray, from a specimen brought from Angola, and placed in 
the Society’s Menagerie in 1848. It bears some resemblance to the Diadem Monkey ((7. leucampyx), and has 
indeed been stated by M. Temminck, though, we believe, quite erroneously, to be identical with that species. 
The Pluto Monkey “belongs,” says Dr. Gray, in his communication to the Zoological Society on this subject 
(Proc. Zool. Soc., 1848, p. 50), “to the division of the genus Cercopithecus with rounded whiskers formed of 
annulated hairs, which have no beard, a variegated fur, and black nose and lips, and is easily distinguished 
from the species of that division by its dark colour and broad frontal band.” 
The present illustration does not represent this typical specimen (which is now in the British Museum, and 
has been already figured in the coloured Illustrations to the Society’s “ Proceedings ”), but a second animal, 
procured by the late Dr. Stanger, at Natal, and presented by him to the Society, in 1851. The latter differed in 
some particulars from the example described by Dr. Gray, having the frontal band less strongly marked, and 
the general colour more uniform. The hairs of the tail had become worn, which probably gave it a lighter 
appearance. These variations led to the name Cercopithecus stangeri being applied to it by the late Mr. Mitchell 
in the Report of the Council of the Society for 1853, and in the temporary letter-press issued with this work. 
But there is little doubt that the animal in question was really referable to the Pluto, under which name it 
was entered in the Society’s books, and no description of C. stangeri appears to have ever been published. 
Unfortunately Dr. Stanger had no precise information as to the locality from which his specimen had been 
derived. 
