The Singhalese have the impression that the remains of a monkey are never found in the forest; a belief which they have embodied in the proverb that “he who has seen a white crow, the nest of a paddy bird, a straight coco-nut tree, or a dead monkey, is certain to live for ever.”  This piece of folk-lore has evidently reached Ceylon from India, where it is believed that persons dwelling on the spot where a hanuman monkey, S. entellus, has been killed, will die, and that even its bones are unlucky, and that no house erected where they are hid under ground can prosper.  Hence when a house is to be built, it is one of the employments of the Jyotish philosophers to ascertain by their science that none such are concealed; and Buchanan observes that “it is, perhaps, owing to this fear of ill-luck that no native will acknowledge his having seen a dead hanuman."[1]

[Footnote 1:  BUCHANAN’S Survey of Bhagulpoor, p. 142.  At Gibraltar it is believed that the body of a dead monkey is never found on the rock.]

The only other quadrumanous animal found in Ceylon is the little loris[1], which, from its sluggish movements, nocturnal habits, and consequent inaction during the day, has acquired the name of the “Ceylon Sloth.”  There are two varieties in the island; one of the ordinary fulvous brown, and another larger, whose fur is entirely black.  A specimen of the former was sent to me from Chilaw, on the western coast, and lived for some time at Colombo, feeding on rice, fruit, and vegetables.  It was partial to ants and other insects, and always eager for milk or the bone of a fowl.  The naturally slow motion of its limbs enables the loris to approach its prey so stealthily that it seizes birds before they can be alarmed by its presence.  The natives assert that it has been known to strangle the pea-fowl at night, and feast on the brain.  During the day the one which I kept was usually asleep in the strange position represented below; its perch firmly grasped with all hands, its back curved into a ball of soft fur, and its head hidden deep between its legs.  The singularly-large and intense eyes of the loris have attracted the attention of the Singhalese, who capture the creature for the purpose of extracting them as charms and love-potions, and this they are said to effect by holding the little animal to the fire till its eyeballs burst.  Its Tamil name is theivangu, or “thin-bodied;” and hence a deformed child or an emaciated person has acquired in the Tamil districts the same epithet.  The light-coloured variety of the loris in Ceylon has a spot on its forehead, somewhat resembling the namam, or mark worn by the worshippers of Vishnu; and, from this peculiarity, it is distinguished as the Nama-theivangu.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Loris gracilis, Geoff.]

[Footnote 2:  There is an interesting notice of the loris of Ceylon by Dr. TEMPLETON, in the Mag.  Nat.  Hist. 1844, ch. xiv. p. 362.]