8 4 
APES AND MONKEYS. 
Fossil Langurs. 
As we might naturally suppose would be the case, fossil remains of langurs 
have been found in their native land of India. Some of these have been obtained 
from caverns in the Madras Presidency, and do not date back much, if at all, beyond 
the human period. Other remains occur, however, in the much older Siwalik 
sandstones forming the ranges on the flanks of the Himalaya, and belonging to the 
upper part of that division of the Tertiary period known to geologists as the 
Pliocene. This does not, however, by any means limit the range of extinct langurs, 
since their remains have been found in the Pliocene deposits of the Yal d’Arno in 
Tuscany, and also in strata of equivalent age in the south of France. We have, 
therefore, evidence that these monkeys, which are now confined to the Oriental 
region, were formerly widely spread over the eastern hemisphere. 
The Proboscis Monkey. 
Genus Nasalis. 
If the physiognomy of the Tibetan langur strikes us as ludicrous, it is hard to 
say what epithet we ought to apply to the far more grotesque-looking creature 
represented in the accompanying figure. The nose of the proboscis monkey is 
indeed so enormous in proportion to the face that it presents the appearance of an 
absolute deformity, and it is very hard to imagine of what possible advantage it 
can be to its owner. 
The proboscis monkey (A. larvatus) is an inhabitant of Borneo, and its 
marked difference from other monkeys is one of the many proofs indicating the 
great antiquity of that island, and the long period during which it has been isolated 
from other lands. In general structure the proboscis monkey conforms so closely 
to the langurs that the peculiarity of its nasal organ would not alone justify its 
separation from that group as the representative of a distinct genus, although it 
was on this ground alone that the separation was originally made. Subsequent 
researches have, however, shown that the skull can be distinguished at a glance 
from that of any of the langurs, and also from those of the African genus Colobus, 
to be mentioned immediately, by the form of the aperture of the nasal cavity. 
Thus, whereas in the latter this aperture extends upwards between the sockets 
of the eyes, in the proboscis monkey the nose bones which roof over this aperture 
descend considerably below the lower margin of the eye-sockets. In this respect 
the species under consideration resembles the macaques and their allies. 
The proboscis monkey was first made known to European science in 1781 
by Baron Wurmb, sometime Dutch governor of Batavia. Wurmb described it 
under the name Kahau, a term apparently made up from a resemblance to its crv, 
but unknown to the native inhabitants of Borneo, by whom it is said to be called 
Bantajau. Specimens were subsequently sent to Europe by Sir Stamford Raffles, 
and it was considered by Messrs Vigors and Horsfield that these indicated two 
