This
monkey stands upward of three feet high, and weighs about eighty
pounds. He has immense muscular power, and he has also a great
peculiarity in the formation of the skull, which is closely
allied to that of a human being, the lower jaw and the upper
being in a straight line with the forehead. In monkeys the jaws
usually project. This species exists in most parts of Ceylon,
but I have seen it of a larger size at Newera Ellia thin in any
of the low-country districts.
Elephants are proverbially sagacious, both in their wild state
and when domesticated. I have previously described the building
of a dam by a tame elephant, which was an exhibition of reason
hardly to be expected in any animal. They are likewise
wonderfully sagacious in a wild state in preserving themselves
from accidents, to which, from their bulk and immense weight,
they would be particularly liable, such as the crumbling of the
verge of a precipice, the insecurity of a bridge or the
suffocating depth of mud in a lake.
It is the popular opinion, and I have seen it expressed in many
works, that the elephant shuns rough and rocky ground, over which
he moves with difficulty, and that he delights in level plains,
etc.
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