Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/688

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668
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with the forehead, does not offer that bold prominence which is nearly always a token of ferocity. The brain-case is large and well developed posteriorly, and the temporal ridge, i. e., the bony prominence to which are attached the principal muscles of the under jaw, is smaller than in the Semnopitheci. The eye-sockets are round, the cheek-bones prominent, and the nasal region, instead of being in a right line with the forehead, as in the mitred monkey and the great monkey of Cochin-China, is deeply depressed, giving to the face a very peculiar expression. The bones of the nose are reduced to an extreme degree, and the openings of the nostrils, especially in the adult, are very large.

The teeth are remarkable for their development, and in the male the canines are long and sharp.

Alphonse Milne-Edwards has published, in his work on the "Natural History of the Mammalia," a detailed description of this monkey, accompanied by a colored plate, from which our engraving is copied. Unfortunately, the engraving cannot give any idea of the coloration of the animal, and hence we must briefly describe it in words.

The Moupin monkey is of considerable size, the adult male measuring one metre and forty centimetres from the extremity of the muzzle to the extremity of the tail. The face is short, turquoise-green in color; the eyes are large, with nut-brown iris; the nose is turned up at the point. It is to this latter peculiarity, which becomes all the more striking as the animal grows older, that the Moupin monkey is indebted for its generic name Rhinopithecus.

The skin around the eyes is greenish, and the nose and muzzle almost naked. But the cheek-bones, the jaws, and the superciliary arches, are covered with thick hair. On the forehead, this hair, which is of a bright reddish-yellow color, is mixed with darker hairs tipped with black. The upper part of the head is covered with grayish-black hair, mixed with rust-color; it forms a sort of skull-cap, and is directed toward the back of the head.

The nape of the neck and the shoulders are of the same color as the crown of the head, but the back, and especially the posterior portion of the trunk, is, of a more lively and brilliant hue, owing to the presence of numerous yellowish-gray hairs, with reflex of silver. In old individuals the hairs attain the length of ten centimetres (nearly four inches). On the outside of the arms similar hairs are to be seen, though of duller hue, and on the front of the thighs and legs there is a stripe of iron-gray. But the hinder and outside aspect of the thighs is of a very light yellow, and the inner surfaces of the thighs and legs rust-colored, changing to reddish on the upper side of the feet.

The hair of the anterior hands is gray. The tail is thick and tufted, dark gray at the root and whity gray at the tip.

The female is distinguished from the male by certain differences