The mammalia, birds, and reptiles received their first scientific description in an able work published recently by Dr. Kelaart of the army medical staff[1], which is by far the most valuable that has yet appeared on the Singhalese fauna. Co-operating with him, Mr. Layard has supplied a fund of information especially in ornithology and conchology. The zoophytes and crustacea have been investigated by Professor Harvey, who visited Ceylon for that purpose in 1852, and by Professor Schmarda, of the University of Prague, who was lately sent there for a similar object. From the united labours of these gentlemen and others interested in the same pursuits, we may hope at an early day to obtain such a knowledge of the zoology of Ceylon, as may to some extent compensate for the long indifference of the government officers.
1: Prodromus Faunæ Zeylanicæ; being Contributions to the Zoology of Ceylon, by F. KELAART, Esq., M.D., F.L.S., &c. &c. 2 vols. Colombo and London, 1852. Mr. DAVY, of the Medical Staff; brother to Sir Humphry, published in 1821 his Account of the Interior of Ceylon and its Inhabitants, which contains the earliest notices of the natural history of the island, and especially of the Ophidian reptiles.
I. QUADRUMANA. 1 Monkeys.—To a stranger in the tropics, among the most attractive creatures in the forests are the troops of monkeys, which career in ceaseless chase among the loftiest trees. In Ceylon there are five species, four of which belong to one group, the Wanderoos, and the other is the little graceful grimacing rilawa[1], which is the universal pet and favourite, of both natives and Europeans.
1: Macacus pileatus, Shaw and Desmmarest. The "bonneted Macaque" is common in the south and west; and a spectacled monkey is said to inhabit the low country near to Bintenne; but I have never seen one brought thence. A paper by Dr. TEMPLETON in the Mag. Nat. Hist. n.s. xiv. p. 361, contains some interesting facts relative to the Rilawa of Ceylon.
KNOX, in his captivating account of the island, gives an accurate description of both; the Rilawas, with "no beards, white faces, and long hair on the top of their heads, which parteth and hangeth down like a man's, and which do a deal of mischief to the corn, and are so impudent that they will come into their gardens, and eat such fruit as grows there. And the Wanderoos, some as large as our English Spaniel dogs, of a darkish grey colour, and black faces with great white beards round from ear to ear, which makes them shew just like old men. This sort does but little mischief, keeping in the woods, eating only leaves and buds of trees, but when they are catched they will eat anything."[1]
1: KNOX, Historical Relation of Ceylon, an Island in the East Indies.—P. i. ch. vi. p. 25. Fol. Lond. 1681.
KNOX, whose experience was confined almost exclusively to the hill country around Kandy, spoke in all probability of one large and comparatively powerful species, Presbytes ursinus, which inhabits the lofty forests, and which, as well as another of the same group, P. Thersites, was, till recently, unknown to European naturalists. The Singhalese word Ouanderu has a generic sense, and being in every respect the equivalent for our own term of "monkey," it necessarily comprehends the low country species, as well as those which inhabit other parts of the island. And, in point of fact, in the island there are no less than four animals, each of which is entitled to the name of "wanderoo."[1]
1: Down to a very late period, a large and somewhat repulsive-looking monkey, common to the Malabar coast, the Silenus veter, Linn., was, from the circumstance of his possessing a "great white beard," incorrectly assumed to be the "wanderoo" of Ceylon, described by KNOX; and under that usurped name it has figured in every author from Buffon to the present time. Specimens of the true Singhalese species were, however, received in Europe; but in the absence of information in this country as to their actual habitat, they were described, first by Zimmerman, on the continent, under the name of Leucoprymnus cephalopterus, and subsequently by Mr. E. Bennett, under that of Semnopithecus Nestor (Proc. Zool. Soc. pt. i. p. 67: 1833); the generic and specific characters being on this occasion most carefully pointed out by that eminent naturalist. Eleven years later Dr. Templeton forwarded to the Zoological Society a description, accompanied by drawings, of the wanderoo of the western maritime districts of Ceylon, and noticed the fact that the wanderoo of authors (S. veter) was not to be found in the island except as an introduced species in the custody of the Arab horse-dealers, who visit the port of Colombo at stated periods. Mr. Waterhouse, at the meeting (Proc. Zool. Soc. p. 1: 1844) at which this communication was read, recognised the identity of the subject of Dr. Templeton's description with that already laid before them by Mr. Bennett; and from this period the species in question was believed to truly represent the wanderoo of Knox. The later discovery, however, of the P. ursinus by Dr. Kelaart, in the mountains amongst which we are assured that Knox spent so many years of captivity, reopens the question, but at the same time appears to me to clearly demonstrate that in this latter we have in reality the animal to which his narrative refers.
Each separate species has appropriated to itself a different district of the wooded country, and seldom encroaches on the domain of its neighbours.