Observations upon Presbytes albigena, Gray, and Colobus guereza, Rüppell / by James Murie.
- Murie, James.
- Date:
- [1865]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations upon Presbytes albigena, Gray, and Colobus guereza, Rüppell / by James Murie. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![I8C5.] the former in the British Museum may be said to correspond with tlieir African representatives as follows :—C.guereza with S. entellus, C. temminckii with (S. melalophus (but not so laterally compressed), while C. pobjcomus may be likened to S. maurus or S. entellus. The crania of the Cercopitheci in some characters agree with Ce?*- cocehus, and in others slightly with Semnopithecus. As related to the present subject, I shall introduce some notes I made in January 1863, of the dissection of an adult male specimen of Colobus giiereza, Riippell. While at Nyambura, a village in the Moro territory, about sixty miles due west of Gondukoro, on the White Nile, an animal of the above species was shot by one of our party, and on my examining the viscera the following peculiarities were observed :— Stomach in dimensions : . , inches. Length of greater curvature about 29 of lesser curvature about 13 Greatest breadth of organ 6 The viscus, when laid out flat, was of an elongated, somewhat pyriform shape, with many transverse sacculi, as in the first part of the great intestines of the human subject. The cardiac extremity was rotund and expanded ; there was a constriction to the left of the oesophagus, about as far distant as was the cardiac end from it; to the left of this constricted part the stomach was much narrower, and the sacculi less in capacity ; a third still narrower and more in- testiniform part stretched to the right of the last, and about equal to it in length. The accompanying diagram, which I lay before the Society, is from a sketch made at the time, and may convey a better idea of the appearance of tiie organs than a lengthened description. Small intestines, in length 8 feat 7j inches ; the large intestines, including caecum, 5 feet 9 inches. Caecum simple, very hke the re- presentation given by Prof. Owen of that of Semnopithecus entellus; length \^ inch, circumference 4| inches. The lungs had five lobes on the right side and four on the left; length of each about 7 inches. Pancreas short, with a bifid extre- mity ; length 2^ inches, breadth \\ inch. The right and left lobes of the liver were very disproportionate in size, the left being very much the larger of the two. I omitted to note the relative position of the liver to the stomach in situ ; but from my sketch of the organ when taken out, it showed that whenever the stomach was distended with food it would press the left lobe of the liver over the much smaller right one, and this overlapping would produce the same irregular position of the liver in the right hypochondriac region as is recorded by Owen in 5. entellus. The length of the left lobe, in C. yuereza, was 1\ inches, of the right 4 inches. First. My observations, though not extensive, may help there- fore to bear out the fact that Preshytes alhigena. Gray, is rather allied to the genus Cercocebus (where the skull has already been placed) than to the Indian group Semnopithecus, with which it was](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22286755_0007.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
