Mammals / by J. Lewis Bonhote.

  • Bonhote, J. Lewis (John Lewis James), 1875-1922.
Date:
[1903?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mammals / by J. Lewis Bonhote. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/62 (page 6)
    a, b, c. $ , 9 skl.,juv. in ale. Tanjong Patani. loth June, 1901. d-h. $ ,4. $ . Tanjong Patani. 1st October, 1901, 30th September, 1901. i. <£jr. Ban Sai Kau, Nawngchik. 18th September, 1901. k. $ Tenebong, Jalor. nth August, 1901. A very typical series showing no variation. The immature specimen is just losing the first yellow pelage which is only left on the hind-quarters and tail. Over the rest of the body the hairs are of a uniform greyish-black, the light patch on the occiput being hardly distinguishable. ‘ The lotong is very generally distributed over those parts of the Peninsula that we visited, with the exception of South Perak. Near Biserat it was very abundant on the craggy limestone hills in the vicinity, where it was practically inaccessible, but it never approached the village. Among the casuarinas on Tanjong Patani it was abundant and tame, keeping in troops of one old male with five or six females and young ; these old males are said by the natives to be frequently very savage and even to attack small children. In habits it is much more arboreal than the “ kra,” and we never saw one of them on the ground. Judging from two specimens obtained the young must be born about February or March (at the end of the stormy season), and until they are about one- third grown are of a beautiful golden-yellow colour, with fur of a soft and silky texture. ‘When driven on to an isolated tree these monkeys would ascend the trunk as high as they could, and then strive to conceal themselves by pressing their bodies as closely as possible against the trunk or some large branch, under which circumstances it was very difficult to make them out exactly. At Tan- jong Patani the food of those specimens which we examined had consisted entirely of the young shoots of the casuarina. ‘ A curious change has taken place in the habits of this species at Biserat within the last two years. When Annandale was there in 1899 as a member of the c Skeat ’ Expedition, it was common among the fruit trees of the village, into which one or more families came down from the hills nearly every day. The natives deny that it ever does so now. The reason for the change is probably that the houses of Biserat have recently been separated from one another by a broad roadway. Possibly also the large numbers of Siamese and Chinamen now settled there may have something to do with the disappearance of the lotong from the village, for these two races, unlike the Malays, eat the flesh of the monkey, believing that it has strong tonic qualities, especially for pregnant women. We noticed that while P. obscurus was extremely wary in the interior, it was comparatively tame in the neighbourhood of the purely Malay fishing villages on the coast.’