Copy 2

Animals in menageries / By William Swainson.

  • William Swainson
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Animals in menageries / By William Swainson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which poets and mytholo- gists assign to the goddess of hunting. It is one of the f most gentle and _ graceful |} monkeys usually seen in menageries. Of its habits in a state of nature we know INS =. Sos ss nothing. A living specimen, Mug Noe Ss in the Zoological Gardens, Ss is described as ‘* moderately playful, and quite familiar.” It is a native of Western Africa, and is stated, by Marcgrave and the older na- turalists, to inhabit the forests of Congo and Guinea. In size, the Diana monkey is about eighteen inches in length, without reckoning the tail, which is very long, and measures nearly two feet. Its colouring is peculiarly varied and graceful: the head, neck, sides, and middle of the body beneath, are of a dark ash-colour, which becomes gradually darker on the outside of the limbs and tail, and is finally converted into a deep black at the extremities. ‘The face and ears are intensely black. Besides the white frontal band before alluded to, there are broad bushy tufts of white hairs on the sides of the face and on the chin, which is thus ornamented by a flat beard, two or three inches long: the chest and inside of the arms is covered by a well defined patch of white, and another, of a light orange, is on the belly.* Tue Mona Monkey. Cercopithecus Mona, Geoff. Griff. Cuv. i. 268, Zool. Gard. UN Bi. There is a general resemblance between this and the Diana monkey ; but the Mona is still more beautiful in its colours, and more elegant in its form. It appears, in short, to exhibit a superiority of sagacity, of penetration, and of gentleness, far above any other species of its tribe. It seems to be a native more of Northern than of Tropical Africa. We owe to M. F. Cuvier the fol- * Zool. Gard. ii. 35, B.2
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