LANGURS. 
7i 
in the woods, eating only leaves and buds of trees; but when they are catched they 
will eat anything. This sort they call in their language wanderows (wanderus).” 
This account has been thought to apply to the lion-tailed monkey (a macaque), 
which was formerly incorrectly called the Wanderu. That monkey is, however, 
black; and there is not the slightest doubt but that Knox described the langurs, 
which are the wanderus of the Singalese. 
The HanumAn, or True Langur (Semnopithecus entellus). 
Perhaps the best known of all the langurs, and the one which gives the 
scientific name to the genus, is the hanuman monkey, or true langur, of which 
we give a figure. This line monkey is found throughout the northern part of 
Peninsular India, from South-Western Bengal and Orissa to Gujerat and Bombay, 
and is also found in Kattywar, and probably Katch, although unknown in Sind and 
the Punjab. Southwards it ranges into the Bombay Deccan; while its extreme 
northern limit extends to the outer ranges of the Himalaya, although there is still 
some doubt as to where the range of this species ends and that of the next begins. 
The hanuman is one of four species of Indian langurs, characterised by having 
the hair covering the crown of the head radiating in all directions from a central 
point situated on the forehead. It is distinguished from its allies by the absence of 
any crest of hair on the head, of which the colour is scarcely, if at all, paler than 
that of the back; and by the full black colour of the upper surfaces of the hands 
and feet. The hair of the cheeks does not cover the relatively large ears. The 
general colour is greyish-brown, paler in some individuals than in others; but the 
face, ears, feet, and hands, are coal-black. In size a large male hanuman will 
measure some 30 inches in head and body; but average specimens will be about 
25 inches, while their tail will measure as much as 38. As Mr. Sterndale has 
well observed, “the tout ensemble of the langur is so peculiar that no one who 
has once been told of a long, loose-limbed, slender monkey, with a prodigious 
tail, black face, and overhanging brows of long, stiff, black hair, projecting like 
a penthouse, would fail to recognise the animal.” 
Langurs are exceedingly common throughout a large part of India, 
and in most districts are held sacred by the Hindus, by whom they are 
allowed to plunder the grain-shops at will. Mr. Sterndale considers, however, that the 
best times of the hanuman are over, and that it is not now allowed the free run of the 
bazaars so readily as it once was, while in some districts the aid of Europeans has even 
been invoked to rid the natives from the devastations of these monkeys, which take 
their name from the god Hanuman, to whom they are sacred. 
As Mr. W. T. Blanford observes, the protection accorded to the hanuman by 
the Hindus of Northern India has caused these animals to be so tame, and so utterly 
regardless of the presence of man, that there are but few mammals whose habits 
can be so well observed. The same writer states that “ the hanuman is usually 
found in smaller or larger communities, composed of individuals of both sexes and 
of all ages, the youngest clinging to their mothers, and being carried by them, 
especially when alarmed. An old male is occasionally found solitary, as with so 
many other mammals, The story that males and females live in separate troops, 
