The Tower Menagerie : $b comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history.Bennett, Edward Turner
History
The Tower Menagerie : $b comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history.
The specimen from which the central figure was taken is in all
probability the earlier age of a species of Cercopithecus; but to which
of them it should be referred, or whether it belongs to any hitherto
characterized species, we may not venture to determine until its
characters shall have become more fully developed. The distinctive
marks of this genus, which comprehends the smallest Monkeys of the
Old Continent, consist in a depressed forehead, with a facial angle
of 50°; a flat nose, with the nostrils directed upwards and outwards;
cheek-pouches, generally of large size; callosities behind; and a tail
of considerable length. The individual before us, in addition to these
characters, is remarkable for the reddish brown colour of his upper
parts, which gradually disappears in a lighter hue, mingled with a bluish
tinge beneath; for the elevated and compressed toupet which advances
considerably forwards on his forehead; for the hairs which are thinly
scattered over his livid face; and for the spreading tufts of a somewhat
lighter colour which occupy the sides of his head and face posteriorly.
The animal which occupies the right hand in the cut appears to be the
young of the Macacus cynomolgus, Cuv., the Common Macaque; or rather
perhaps, if the colour of the face is to be regarded as affording a
sufficient specific distinction, of a new species lately described by
M. F. Cuvier under the name of Macacus carbonarius. The Macaques are
characterized by the greater elongation of their muzzles, which reduces
their facial angle to 40° or 45°; by the strong developement of their
superciliary ridges; by the oblique position of their nostrils in the
upper surface of their nose; and by the presence of cheek-pouches and
callosities. The young animal figured is blackish brown above, and, as is
very common among the Monkeys, lighter and of a bluish cast beneath; his
hands and face are nearly black; the hairs which cover his forehead form
a thick tuft advancing forwards; and his face is almost naked.
We have little hesitation in referring the left hand figure to the
Cercopithecus pileatus of M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, the Guenon couronnée
of Buffon, which M. Cuvier suspects, with great appearance of truth, to
be nothing more than a variety of the Macacus Sinicus, the Bonnet Chinois
of the same popular author. It differs from that in fact in little else
than in a shorter muzzle, and in a less regularly radiated and depressed
disposition of the hair of the upper part of the head; characters which
may be fairly regarded as resulting from its immature age. We may also
observe that the Macacus radiatus, Geoff., described in the succeeding
article, does not appear to be by any means clearly distinguished from
the Bonnet Chinois; and that it is highly probable that these three
Monkeys form in reality but a single species.
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