e and confiding, sensible in the highest degree of kindness,
and eager for endearing attention, uttering a low plaintive cry when
its sympathies are excited. It is particularly cleanly in its habits
when domesticated, and spends much of its time in trimming its fur,
and carefully divesting its hair of particles of dust.

[Footnote 1: Leucoprymnus Nestor, _Bennett_.]

Those which I kept at my house near Colombo were chiefly fed upon
plantains and bananas, but for nothing did they evince a greater
partiality than the rose-coloured flowers of the red hibiscus (H.
_rosa-sinensis_).

These they devoured with unequivocal gusto; they likewise relished the
leaves of many other trees, and even the bark of a few of the more
succulent ones. A hint might possibly be taken from this circumstance
for improving the regimen of monkeys in menageries, by the occasional
admixture of a few fresh leaves and flowers with their solid and
substantial dietary.

A white monkey, taken between Ambepusse and Kornegalle, where they are
said to be numerous, was brought to me to Colombo. Except in colour,
it had all the characteristics of _Presbytes cephalopterus_. So
striking was its whiteness that it might have been conjectured to be
an albino, but for the circumstance that its eyes and face were black.
I have heard that white monkeys have been seen near the Ridi-galle
Wihara in Seven Korles and also at Tangalle; but I never saw another
specimen. The natives say they are not uncommon, and KNOX that they
are "milk-white both in body and face; but of this sort there is not
such plenty."[1] The Rev. R. SPENCE HARDY mentions, in his learned
work on _Eastern Monachism_, that on the occasion of his visit to
the great temple of Dambool, he encountered a troop of white monkeys
on the rock in which it is situated--which were, doubtless, a variety
of the Wanderoo.[2] PLINY was aware of the fact that white monkeys are
occasionally found in India.[3]

[Footnote 1: KNOX, pt. i.e. vi. p. 25.]

[Footnote 2: _Eastern Monachism_. c: xix; p. 204.]

[Footnote 3: PLINY, Nat. Hist. I. viii. c. xxxii.]

When observed in their native wilds, a party of twenty or thirty of
these creatures is generally busily engaged in the search for berries
and buds. They are seldom to be seen on the ground, except when
they may have descended to recover seeds or fruit which have fallen at
the foot of their favourite trees. When disturbed, their leaps are
prodigious: but, general