I 12 
APES AND MONKEYS. 
and take to a diet of crabs and insects it is difficult to conceive; unless, indeed, they 
may have been driven to it during a season of scarcity, and found it so much to 
their liking that they have continued it ever since. Be this as it may, there is no 
doubt whatever as to the crustacean-devouring proclivities of this species. For 
instance, Sir Arthur Pliayre mentions that “these monkeys frequent the banks of 
salt-water creeks and devour shell-fish. In the cheek-pouches of a female were 
found the claws and body of a crab. There is not much on record concerning the 
habits of this monkey in its wild state beyond what is stated concerning its 
partiality for crabs, which can also, I believe, be said of the rhesus in the Bengal 
sanderbans.” According to Colonel Tickell, as quoted by Mr. Blanford, the crab¬ 
eating macaque is common on the tidal creeks and rivers of Burma and Tenasserim, 
THE LION-TAILED MONKEY liat. size). 
especially in the delta of the Ira wadi. They go usually in small family parties of from 
five to fifteen individuals, including an old male and four or five females with their 
offspring. Their home is among the roots and boughs of the mangrove trees, and 
they spend a large portion of their time in searching for insects and crabs. From 
the constant presence of human beings on the water-ways near which they dwell, 
these monkeys become very tame, and can be easily approached. They will even, 
Mr. Blanford tells us, pick up rice or fruit thrown down to them. Still more 
remarkable is the facility with which they can swim and dive. Colonel Tickell 
states that on one occasion a male of this species that had been wounded and placed 
for security in a boat, jumped overboard and dived several times over to a distance 
of some fifty yards, in order to prevent recapture. Like most macaques, this species 
is gentle if captured at a sufficiently early age, but the old males always become 
