[Footnote 1:  KNOX, Historical Relation of Ceylon, an Island in the East Indies.—­P. i. ch. vi. p. 25.  Fol.  Lond. 1681.  See an account of his captivity in SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT’S Ceylon, etc., Vol.  II. p. 66 n.]

KNOX, whose experience during his long captivity was confined almost exclusively to the hill country around Kandy, spoke in all probability of one large and comparatively powerful species, Presbytes ursinus, which inhabits the lofty forests, and which, as well as another of the same group, P.  Thersites, was, till recently, unknown to European naturalists.  The Singhalese word Ouandura has a generic sense, and being in every respect the equivalent fur our own term of “monkey” it necessarily comprehends the low country species, as well as those which inhabit other parts of the island.  In point of fact, there are no less than four animals in the island, each of which is entitled to the name of “wanderoo."[1] Each separate species has appropriated to itself a different district of the wooded country, and seldom encroaches on the domain of its neighbours.

[Footnote 1:  Down to a very late period, a large and somewhat repulsive-looking monkey, common to the Malabar coast, the Silenus veter, Linn., was, from the circumstance of his possessing a “great white beard,” incorrectly assumed to be the “wanderoo” of Ceylon, described by KNOX; and under that usurped name it has figured in every author from Buffon to the present time.  Specimens of the true Singhalese species were, however, received in Europe; but in the absence of information in this country as to their actual habitat, they were described, first by Zimmerman, on the continent, under the name of, Leucoprymnus cephalopterus, and subsequently by Mr. E. Bennett, under that of Semnopithecus Nestor (Proc.  Zool.  Soc. pt. i. p. 67:  1833); the generic and specific characters being on this occasion most carefully pointed out by that eminent naturalist.  Eleven years later Dr. Templeton forwarded to the Zoological Society a description, accompanied by drawings, of the wanderoo of the western maritime districts of Ceylon, and noticed the fact that the wanderoo of authors (S. veter) was not to be found in the island except as an introduced species in the custody of the Arab horse-dealers, who visit the port of Colombo at stated periods.  Mr. Waterhouse, at the meeting (Proc.  Zool.  Soc. p. 1:  1844) at which this communication was read, recognised the identity of the subject of Dr. Templeton’s description with that already laid before them by Mr. Bennett; and from this period the species in question was believed to truly represent the wanderoo of Knox.  The later discovery, however, of the P. ursinus by Dr. Kelaart, in the mountains amongst which we are assured that Knox spent so many years of captivity, reopens the question, but at the same time appears to me clearly to demonstrate that in this latter we have in reality the animal to which his narrative refers.]