They grow to the size of a large Pointer Dog, and are powerful animals, assembling in troops, and playing and associating probably with the Orangs. Stuffed specimens of the Proboscis Monkey are usually simple caricatures, and by no means good ones, for they do not give one-half of the curious appearance of the face. In nature, and in drawings taken shortly after death, the first thing that strikes one is the flat top to the head, and the red hair there, starting from the top of the crown, and radiating in all directions, and coming as a very sharp line straight over the eyebrows, and cutting the forehead very short. Then the prodigious nose, stuck out some inches in front of the mouth, is, with the rest of the face, naked, and of a reddish-brown flesh-colour. The eyes are wide apart and open, and are of a hazel colour. The whiskers clasp the face, as it were, and are brushed back, and join the hair of the neck, whilst the little beard sticks out like a goat’s. The mouth is wide, and the chin recedes. It is a long-bodied creature, and there is a great bend outwards in the back when it squats on its haunches. There is a good-sized chest, there are long arms, still longer legs, and a great tail. The prevailing colour of the back and shoulders is the red or dark-red brown of the head hair, whilst the rest of the body is of a lighter tint, the tail and limbs especially. The thumb of the hand is small, and barely reaches as far as the first finger-joint, but the toe-thumb is large, widely set from the foot, and the skin-fold comes far down it, as also does a web between the toes, the third of which is the longest.
LONG-NOSED MONKEY.
The skull of this Monkey greatly resembles that of the other Semnopitheci. The face part is smaller in comparison with that of the great Apes, but then it is not much larger than the brain case. There is a faint ridge at the side, and the usual one from one ear to the other exists. The front of the face on each side of the opening for the nose is rather larger and more prominent than in some other kinds, but there are no evidences of the existence of the great fleshy and gristly mass which is stuck on in front in life. This swelling of the front of the face in the skull slightly reminds us of a greater one which characterises the Dog-faced Baboons, and, moreover, the similarity is increased by the fact that the upper eye (canine) tooth presses the first tooth behind the lower eye tooth backwards. These little peculiarities are inherited gifts, for the Nasalis and the Baboon probably came from a common ancestor. Perhaps the great fleshy nose of the Semnopithecus Nasalis is a relic of the long face of the ancient Baboon. Shorten the bones of the Baboon’s nose, and leave the soft parts, and there would be left something like the queer features of the Monkey now under consideration.
YOUNG LONG-NOSED MONKEY.
One must be struck with the long back-bone of this Monkey, its single backward bend, and the long way the ribs seem from the hips; making it like the Gibbons, and very unlike the other great Apes, which have their last ribs close to their hips. The tail is very long, and starts well up the back, that is to say, its origin at the end of the sacrum bone is some distance from the haunches, on which the creature sits. These last are rounded so as to afford comfortable rest, especially as they are covered by the callosities or pads. The feet are long from the metatarsal bones, and the great toe-thumb is accompanied by a long, strong, backward-projecting, and curved-up heel-bone.
The Dyaks call this Monkey the Kaha, for this is the sound which they make when in companies in the woods by the side of the swamps and jungles. There they live a restless life at sunrise and sunset, being quieter in the heat of the day, and crying out at each other. They have fine voices, thanks to their strength, and perhaps to the air sac in their neck, which may render oral sounds more resonant. They are active creatures, and bound from tree to tree, clearing from fifteen to twenty feet with ease.
Being very like extremely ugly humanity, the Dyaks consider them as degraded men, and they give an excellent reason for their human ancestors having left their habits and dwellings. They did not like to pay taxes, so they took to the woods!
It is said that when the ambassadors of Tippoo Saib came to Paris to urge the French to take up his cause against the British in India, they were immensely delighted with the Monkeys with the great noses which were preserved and stuffed in the museum, acknowledging them as compatriots. But as a matter of fact, specimens of this Monkey never had been and never could have been seen by these men, for it does not inhabit the peninsula of India. But it is a fact that when some specimens came over to Paris, preserved in spirits, they excited a wonderful commotion amongst the savans. Broderip was present, and saw one drawn forth, “looking like one of those horrible female fiends sometimes pictured in old woodcuts.