_Macacus speciosus_, F. Cuvier, Mamm., pl. xlvi. (Feb., 1825) (founded on
a drawing).
_Macacus arctoides_, Is. Geoffr., Mag. de Zool., 1833, p. cli., pl. ii.;
Sclater, P. Z. S., 1872, p. 203; Anderson, Zool. Yun-nan, p. 45, pls. i.
and ii. (1878) with full synonymy; Blanford, Faun. Brit. Ind., Mamm., p.
17 (1891); Schl., Mus. Pays-Bas, viii., p. 116 (1876).
_Papio melanotus_, Ogilby, P. Z. S., 1839, p. 31.
_Macacus melanotus_, Gray, Cat. Monkeys Brit. Mus., p. 29 (1870).
_Macacus thibetanus_, Alph., Milne-Edwards, C. R., lxx., p. 341 (1870).
_Macacus brunneus_, Anderson, P. Z. S., 1871, p. 628, 1872, p. 203, pl.
xii. (Jun.), 1874, p. 652.
CHARACTERS.--Body short and stout; head large; muzzle short and truncated;
chin bulging; chin and throat almost nude; eyes large; ears large and
rounded, with a pointed projection behind; limbs short, stout and strong;
hands and fingers short, the terminal phalanges nude; tail almost
rudimentary; callosities and surrounding region of buttocks naked.
Fur long and woolly (especially in those living at high {9}altitudes),
longer on the head, back and limbs, shortest over the sacrum; hair on the
head parted outwards from the centre; fingers slightly haired; tail thinly
haired, or nude in old animals. In individuals living in the inclement
regions of Eastern Thibet, the tail is thickly haired.
General colour dark brown or blackish; cheeks, underside of body, inner
sides of arms and legs paler, washed with yellowish, the hairs being very
closely ringed (in some more distinctly than in others), for their outer
two-thirds, with alternating annulations of golden-yellow and brown, their
terminal points dark brown. Face, ears, sub-caudal callosities, bright
reddish flesh-colour, deeper round the eyes. Length of the body, 15-24
inches; tail 1½-2 inches.
In the young the fur is lighter. When first born it is of purely uniform
brown, the annulations appearing and increasing in number with advancing
age.
In a young Bornean specimen the sides, abdomen, and legs are light chestnut
colour; the tips of many of the hairs golden, which with age changes more
and more into blackish-brown. The tail is 3½ inches long, and extremely
slender for the last two-thirds of its length--a part easily lost in
captivity.
Tongue with numerous papillated glandular crypts for lubrication of the
cheek-pouches. Throat-pouch situated in an excavated hollow in the hyoid
bone, the pouch being continuous with the convergence of the vocal chords.
Skull with strong inwardly projecting supra-orbital processes; external
opening for the nostrils triangular. The anterior upper incisors appear
first, followed by the anterior pre-molar, the median molar, the median
pre-molar, and then the canines; anterior molar four-cusped; anterior lower
molar five-cusped. Caudal vertebræ eleven in number.
{10}DISTRIBUTION.--Moupin in N.W. China, living on the snow-clad mountains;
Upper Burmah (Bahmo); Siam; the Cachar and Kachin hill-region on the
western frontier of the Province of Yun-nan, China; North-west Borneo, on
the mainland opposite Labuan. This species has been recorded, but
erroneously, from Madras, whither specimens are imported from Burmah, or
from the Malayan Islands.
Dr. John Anderson, the distinguished naturalist of the Yun-nan Expedition,
gives the following interesting remarks in reference to the distribution of
this species: "_M. arctoides_ would seem to have a considerable range of
distribution, in which, however, it conforms to that which is distinctive
of a large series of the Mammalian forms which occur in the same region. It
has been obtained in Cachar, and I have learned of its existence in Upper
Assam, and have procured it alive in the Kachin Hills on the frontier of
Yun-nan, beyond which it spreads to the south-east of Cochin-China. It
seems essentially to be a hill or mountain form--occurring only in the
mountainous regions of Cachar, being absent in the valley of the Irawady,
but stretching round it into Yun-nan from Upper Assam, being doubtless
distributed over the mountainous region that intervenes between the Irawady
and Cochin-China."
HABITS.--Of this Macaque little is known in a wild state. It is, however,
very docile and gentle in captivity. In life the tail is rarely carried
erect, and is as a rule applied over the anus; its latter fourth being
doubled on itself to the left, and serving to fill up the interspace
between the divergent portion of the callosities, so that the animal sits
on this portion of its tail, which contains only a few rudiments of
vertebræ at its {11}base, and the upper surface of which is rough and
somewhat callous.... Here we have a monkey which sits on its tail, and
although it may be that it does not invariably do so, I am prepared to
state, after careful observation, that it does so very frequently; and
there is the more importance to be attached to this observation, because
this habit appears to be a peculiarity of the species. (_Anderson._)