Part 11

Crocodiles may grow to a length of 18 and probably 20 feet or more, and are powerful creatures, which are the pests of the waters they frequent, seizing and dragging down women and men who come to draw water, and gripping by the nose cattle and other animals which come to drink. A beast thus seized has little chance of escape, no matter what may be its size, as it is taken at a disadvantage and rendered comparatively helpless; but there is a well-authenticated story of a Nile crocodile seizing a rhinoceros by one of the hind-legs just as it was about to leave the river, and eventually dragging the enormous beast, despite its frantic efforts, backwards into deep water, where it was drowned.

The prey is, indeed, always killed by drowning, after which the carcase is dragged ashore and concealed among reeds or other covert, where it is left until decomposition has set in before being devoured. A large proportion of the food of the Nile crocodile is stated, however, to consist of fish; and snails, water-fowl, and carrion are also devoured by these ravenous reptiles. When in repose, crocodiles lie like logs in the water, or on the neighbouring sand and mud banks, but the slightest sound awakens them to activity.

Hearing seems indeed to be the sense most strongly developed in crocodiles; and it is upon this that they depend in ascertaining the presence of prey. Smell, touch, and taste appear to be but poorly developed; and the tongue is affixed to the lower surface of the mouth throughout its entire length. Crocodiles are furnished with glands secreting a musky substance, much esteemed by the Sudanis for anointing their hair and bodies, and thus producing what is to them, no doubt, an agreeable odour.

All crocodiles lay hard-shelled, oval eggs, about the size of those of a goose. These are deposited by the female, to the number of from about twenty to ninety, a yard or so deep in the sand of the river-bank, where they are carefully covered up by means of her tail, and then left to mature by the action of the sun’s rays. The mother appears, however, to keep watch in the neighbourhood of the nest, and when the eggs are ready to hatch, their occupants utter a peculiar sound which attracts the parent to their assistance.

THE WHITE-HANDED GIBBON

(Hylobates lar)

The name gibbon, which is of unknown origin, and appears to have been first used by the French naturalist Buffon, is applied to the members of the smallest representatives of the man-like apes, all of which differ from their larger cousins, the chimpanzi, gorilla, and orang-utan, by retaining small bare patches on the buttocks. In this respect they show evidence of kinship to ordinary monkeys and baboons, in which, however, these naked callosities, as they are called by naturalists, attain much greater development.

Gibbons agree with the larger man-like apes in the complete absence of the tail, but are distinguished by the great length of the limbs, more especially the front pair, so that when these curious pigmies are standing upright on their feet, their hands touch the ground. It is very interesting to note in this connection that gibbons are the only man-like apes which habitually assume the erect posture in walking, when the arms are usually elevated and in some cases extended horizontally, thus giving a most remarkable appearance to their owners.

All the members of the group are confined to tropical south-eastern Asia, where they range from the eastern portion of the Himalaya through Burma and the Malay countries to the island of Hainan, off the southern coast of China. The largest species, the siaman (Hylobates syndactylus) of Borneo, does not much exceed one yard in height. In colour they are very generally black, often, as in the species represented in the Plate, with a narrow white band or fillet surrounding the greater part of the face, or making merely a line above the eyebrows. In the white-handed species, forming the subject of the illustration, the white fillet attains its fullest development, and the hands and feet are likewise white. This species inhabits the mountain-forests of Tenasserim at elevations between three thousand and five thousand feet, whence it extends through the Malay Peninsula. Its near relative the hulok (H. hulok), whose range extends from Assam to Arakan and the neighbouring districts, lacks the white hands and feet, while the fillet on the face merely forms a band over the eyebrow. In the Hainan gibbon (H. hainanus) even the eyebrow-band is wanting.

A specimen of this last-named species, which is very near akin to the hulok, afforded a surprise to naturalists in that it changed the colour of its coat during its sojourn in the London Zoological Gardens. When obtained in 1897, at an age of about six months, its colour was dark smoky grey, but this soon changed to black, which persisted till after the animal’s arrival in London in January 1904. In February of that year the fur began to assume a greyish tinge; and by autumn the entire coat had become silvery, or stone, grey, except for a black stripe down the middle line of the head. It does not, however, appear that this colour-change is universal in the species; for another captive specimen believed to be about a dozen years old was wholly black.

This is confirmed by the observations of a French traveller in the case of the white-cheeked gibbon (H. leucogenys) of Annam and Siam, in which two distinct colour-phases are noticeable.

These gibbons commonly go about in parties of six or seven; and while some individuals are black with white whiskers and a band on the sides and lower part of the face, in others the general colour is golden yellow with no white on the face. That the two phases are specifically identical is certain, and it does not appear that the light-coloured individuals eventually become dark, or vice versa. The natives, it is true, have an idea that the light-coloured individuals are the females, but this seems to be disproved by the fact that they are much less numerous than the black ones; and it thus appears probable that the species exhibits two distinct colour-phases.

Gibbons are almost wholly arboreal apes; and in the trees they move about mainly with the aid of their long arms, by means of which they swing themselves from bough to bough, and thus from one tree to another, so that a whole troop will traverse the forest without descending to the ground. So active and agile indeed are these apes, that when confined in open cages they will catch birds on the wing, which apparently form part of their food. In addition to these, gibbons subsist on fruits of various kinds, leaves, young shoots, insects, and spiders.

All gibbons have a remarkably powerful double-note cry, like hu-lok, which has a wailing sound, and awakes the echoes in the early morning and again at evening in the forests inhabited by these apes. At a distance the cry has some faint resemblance to the human voice; but at close quarters it is enough to drive the traveller, when resting in his tent, well-nigh distracted.

THE ABYSSINIAN GREEN MONKEY

(Cercopithecus æthiops)

As a familiar example of a very large assemblage of exclusively African long-tailed monkeys collectively known as guenons (from a French word signifying to make grimaces), no better species could have been selected for illustration than the Abyssinian green monkey. This monkey, which like its cousin the common green monkey (Cercopithecus callitrichus, or sabæus) may be seen in almost all menageries and on many street-organs, is an East African species; whereas the true green monkey is West African, ranging from Senegambia through Sierra Leone to northern Liberia, but has been introduced into some of the Cape Verd and West Indian Islands, where it still occurs plentifully, at least in Barbados.

From the guereza monkeys (Colobus) of Africa, a guenon may be distinguished at a glance by its well-developed thumbs; while these monkeys also differ from guerezas, as well as from their Asiatic relatives the langurs, by having well-developed pouches in their cheeks for storing food. There is, however, another African group of monkeys, the mangabeys (Cercocebus), some of which are more difficult to distinguish from guenons, although the majority are recognisable at a glance by their flesh-coloured eyelids, whence the name of white eyelid monkeys. When this character fails, resource must be had to the cheek-teeth, of which the last pair in the lower jaw is less complex in a guenon than in a mangabey; but to examine the back-teeth of a live monkey is not an experiment every one would desire to try!

To any one but a specialist, the very large number of representatives of the guenons are exceedingly difficult to class and identify. The matter has, however, been somewhat simplified by arranging the species in thirteen groups, each characterised by the possession of some particular distinctive feature or features. The well-known diana monkey (C. diana) represents, for instance, a group in which there are long, upwardly directed, snow-white whiskers associated with blackish or dark red under-parts, a white brow-band, distinctly white areas on the chest and the inside of the arms, a chin-tuft, and a white stripe on the outer side of the thigh. The members of the spot-nosed group, again, as typified by C. petaurista, are recognisable at a glance by having a large, heart-shaped white spot on the tip of the nose. The green monkeys, on the other hand, belong to a group (typified by the Abyssinian species) somewhat less easy to recognise, but characterised by the absence of black on the outer surface of the arms, which may be coloured like the body, but are usually, as in the plate, somewhat paler and grey. The face is nearly always black, but may be mottled or freckled with pigment; and, except in one species, the whiskers grow upwards and backwards over the ears. The western species, the aforesaid C. callitrichus, lacks the white brow-band present in the Abyssinian species and nearly all the other members of the group; the species forming the subject of the plate being further distinguished by the black-speckled yellowish olive colour of the fur of the back, the long, white whiskers, sharply defined from the hair of the rest of the head, and the presence of a tuft of hair at the root of the tail.

Guenons may be regarded as some of the most typical of all monkeys, and those in which monkey-tricks attain their fullest development. They live more on fruits and seeds than either the guerezas or the langurs, which feed largely on leaves and the young shoots of trees. Guenons are indeed probably to some extent omnivorous, whereas the members of the other two groups are wholly herbivorous. This difference in the matter of diet is correlated with the presence of cheek-pouches and the simple character of the stomach in the guenons, whereas the other two groups lack pouches in the cheek, but, in compensation, have the stomach folded and divided in a complex manner.

In their native forests green monkeys and their relatives associate in large troops, which keep up a constant chattering, and each of which is under the leadership and control of an old male. Each troop appears to have its own particular territory in the forest; and if one party intrude on the domain of its neighbour, a fierce contest takes place, which does not end until the invaders have been driven out or have proved themselves the stronger. A survival of this custom may be noticed even among monkeys in a menagerie, where each species or individual will take up one portion of the cage for its own particular use, and resolutely defend it against the other occupants of the enclosure.

From the other members of the genus the patas monkey (C. patas) and its relatives are specially distinguished by their red colouring and large size, and they should perhaps form a genus by themselves.

THE FOX

(Canis vulpes or Vulpes alopex)

The fox enjoys a well-earned reputation for cunning and shrewdness, and especially for its capacity to adapt itself to changed conditions and its presence of mind and resourcefulness in emergencies. Nevertheless, it is possible to deceive even a fox. A well-known American naturalist relates, for instance, how he attracted a fox to within a few yards of his own position by imitating the squeaking of a field-mouse. For some distance he came cautiously skulking between the big tussocks of coarse grass, but for the last fifty yards he had to traverse open sward. When he had got half this distance he became suspicious, and began to think that the motionless, squatting naturalist was not a stump or a rock, whereupon, it is curious to note, that he at once ran to leeward of the suspicious object, thus showing that foxes, like many other animals, trust more to their sense of smell than to their sight.

In spite of the fact that everybody knows a fox by sight, there is a difference of opinion among naturalists as to whether the fox of North America is specifically identical with the European animal. The differences between them are, however, so small and insignificant that the most sensible course is to regard the fox as a circumpolar species, with several local races, both in the Old World and in North America. To attempt anything in the way of description of such a well-known animal would be altogether superfluous, although it may be well to mention that the tip of the tail is always white or whitish; and that, as in most members of the dog family, there is a dark-coloured patch on the upper surface of the root of the tail, indicating the position of a gland.

Although nearly related to wolves and jackals, foxes are distinguished by their slighter make, the relatively shorter limbs and longer body and tail, as well as by the sharper muzzle, and also by a peculiarity in the shape of the projecting process of bone which forms part of the upper border of the socket of the eye. In wolves, jackals, and dogs this process is convex, whereas in all foxes it is concave; thus conclusively proving that the fox has nothing to do with the parentage of the dog.

The typical fox of northern and central Europe is one of the largest representatives of the species, and is further characterised by the deep “foxy” red colour of its coat, and the light colour of the under-parts. In southern Europe this race is replaced by one of rather smaller dimensions (Canis vulpes melanogaster) and less brilliant red in colour, with the under-parts dark, and sometimes a cross-shaped dark mark on the shoulders. Nearly allied is the Himalayan fox (C. v. montanus); but in central Asia and some of the neighbouring countries we find a larger and paler race known as C. v. flavescens. No representative of the species is found to the south of the Himalaya or in Burma and the Malay countries; but the central Asian, or a nearly allied, race probably extends right across Siberia and Manchuria.