The Project Gutenberg EBook of Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon, by Robert A. Sterndale This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon Author: Robert A. Sterndale Release Date: October 16, 2006 [EBook #19550] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAMMALIA OF INDIA *** Produced by Ron Swanson
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This work is designed to meet an existing want, viz.: a popular manual of Indian Mammalia. At present the only work of the kind is one which treats exclusively of the Peninsula of India, and which consequently omits the more interesting types found in Assam, Burmah, and Ceylon, as well as the countries bordering the British Indian Empire on the North. The geographical limits of the present work have been extended to all territories likely to be reached by the sportsman from India, thus greatly enlarging the field of its usefulness.
The stiff formality of the compiled "Natural Histories" has been discarded, and the Author has endeavoured to present, in interesting conversational and often anecdotal style, the results of experience by himself and his personal friends; at the same time freely availing himself of all the known authorities upon the subject.
In laying before the public the following history of the Indian Mammalia, I am actuated by the feeling that a popular work on the subject is needed, and would be appreciated by many who do not care to purchase the expensive books that exist, and who also may be more bothered than enlightened by over-much technical phraseology and those learned anatomical dissertations which are necessary to the scientific zoologist.
Another motive in thus venturing is, that the only complete history of Indian Mammalia is Dr. Jerdon's, which is exhaustive within the boundaries he has assigned to India proper; but as he has excluded Assam, Cachar, Tenasserim, Burmah, Arracan, and Ceylon, his book is incomplete as a Natural History of the Mammals of British India. I shall have to acknowledge much to Jerdon in the following pages, and it is to him I owe much encouragement, whilst we were together in the field during the Indian Mutiny, in the pursuit of the study to which he devoted his life; and the general arrangement of this work will be based on his book, his numbers being preserved, in order that those who possess his 'Mammals of India' may readily refer to the noted species.
But I must also plead indebtedness to many other naturalists who have left their records in the 'Journals of the Asiatic Society' and other publications, or who have brought out books of their own, such as Blyth, Elliott, Hodgson, Sherwill, Sykes, Tickell, Hutton, Kellaart, Emerson Tennent, and others; Col. McMaster's 'Notes on Jerdon,' Dr. Anderson's 'Anatomical and Zoological Researches,' Horsfield's 'Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum of the East India Company,' Dr. Dobson's 'Monograph of the Asiatic Chiroptera,' the writings of Professors Martin Duncan, Flowers, Kitchen Parker, Boyd Dawkins, Garrod, Mr. E. R. Alston, Sir Victor Brooke and others; the Proceedings and Journals of the Zoological, Linnean, and Asiatic Societies, and the correspondence in The Asian; so that after all my own share is minimised to a few remarks here and there, based on personal experience during a long period of jungle life, and on observation of the habits of animals in their wild state, and also in captivity, having made a large collection of living specimens from time to time.
As regards classification, Cuvier's system is the most popular, so I shall adopt it to a certain extent, keeping it as a basis, but engrafting on it such modifications as have met with the approval of modern naturalists. For comparison I give below a synopsis of Cuvier's arrangement. I have placed Cetacea after Carnivora, and Edentata at the end. In this I have followed recent authors as well as Jerdon, whose running numbers I have preserved as far as possible for purposes of reference.
Cuvier divides the Mammals into nine orders, as follows. (The examples I give are Indian ones, except where stated otherwise):—
Order I.—BIMANA. Man.
Order II.—QUADRUMANA. Two families—1st, Apes and Monkeys; 2nd, Lemurs.
Order III.—CARNARIA. Three families—1st, Cheiroptera, Bats; 2nd, Insectivora, Hedgehogs, Shrews, Moles, Tupaiæ, &c.; 3rd, Carnivora: Tribe 1, Plantigrades, Bears, Ailurus, Badger, Arctonyx; 2, Digitigrades, Martens, Weasels, Otters, Cats, Hyænas, Civets, Musangs, Mongoose, Dogs, Wolves and Foxes.
Order IV.—MARSUPIATA. Implacental Mammals peculiar to America and Australia, such as Opossums, Dasyures, Wombats, and Kangaroos. We have none in India.
Order V.—RODENTIA. Squirrels, Marmots, Jerboas, Mole-Rats, Rats, Mice, Voles, Porcupines, and Hares.
Order VI.—EDENTATA, or toothless Mammals, either partially or totally without teeth. Three families—1st, Tardigrades, the Sloths, peculiar to America; 2nd, Effodientia, or Burrowers, of which the Indian type is the Manis, but which includes in other parts of the world the Armadillos and Anteaters; 3rd, Monotremata, Spiny Anteaters or Echidnas, and the Ornithorynchus.
Order VII.—PACHYDERMATA, or thick-skinned Mammals. Three families—1st, Proboscidians, Elephants; 2nd, Ordinary Pachyderms, Rhinoceroses, Hogs; 3rd, Solidungula, Horses.
Order VIII.—RUMINANTIA, or cud-chewing Mammals. Four families—1st, Hornless Ruminants, Camels, Musks; 2nd, Cervidæ, true horns shed periodically, Deer; 3rd, Persistent horns, Giraffes; 4th, Hollow-horned Ruminants, Antelopes, Goats, Sheep and Oxen.
Order IX.—CETACEA. Three families—1st, Herbivorous Cetacea, Manatees, Dugongs; 2nd, Ordinary Cetacea, Porpoises; 3rd, Balænidæ, Whales.
Some people have an extreme repugnance to the idea that man should be treated of in connection with other animals. The development theory is shocking to them, and they would deny that man has anything in common with the brute creation. This is of course mere sentiment; no history of nature would be complete without the noblest work of the Creator. The great gulf that separates the human species from the rest of the animals is the impassable one of intellect. Physically, he should be compared with the other mammals, otherwise we should lose our first standpoint of comparison. There is no degradation in this, nor is it an acceptance of the development theory. To argue that man evolved from the monkey is an ingenious joke which will not bear the test of examination, and the Scriptural account may still be accepted. I firmly believe in man as an original creation just as much as I disbelieve in any development of the Flying Lemur (Galeopithecus) from the Bat, or that the habits of an animal would in time materially alter its anatomy, as in the case of the abnormal length of the hind toe and nail of the Jacana. It is not that the habit of running over floating leaves induced the change, but that an all-wise Creator so fashioned it that it might run on those leaves in search of its food. I accept the development theory to the extent of the multiplication of species, or perhaps, more correctly, varieties in genera. We see in the human race how circumstances affect physical appearance. The child of the ploughman or navvy inherits the broad shoulders and thick-set frame of his father; and in India you may see it still more forcibly in the difference between Hindu and Mahomedan races, and those Hindus who have been converted to Mahomedanism. I do not mean isolated converts here and there who intermarry with pure Mahomedan women, but I mean whole communities who have in olden days been forced to accept Islam. In a few generations the face assumes an unmistakable Mahomedan type. It is the difference in living and in thought that effects this change.
It is the same with animals inhabiting mountainous districts as compared with the same living in the plains; constant enforced exercise tells on the former, and induces a more robust and active form.
Whether diet operates in the same degree to effect changes I am inclined to doubt. In man there is no dental or intestinal difference, whether he be as carnivorous as an Esquimaux or as vegetarian as a Hindu; whereas in created carnivorous, insectivorous, and herbivorous animals there is a striking difference, instantly to be recognised even in those of the same family. Therefore, if diet has operated in effecting such changes, why has it not in the human race?
"Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" is a quotation that may aptly be applied to the question of the classification of man; Cuvier, Blumenbach, Fischer, Bory St. Vincent, Prichard, Latham, Morton, Agassiz and others have each a system.
Cuvier recognises only three types—the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Negro or Ethiopian, including Blumenbach's fourth and fifth classes, American and Malay in Mongolian. But even Cuvier himself could hardly reconcile the American with the Mongol; he had the high cheek-bone and the scanty beard, it is true, but his eyes and his nose were as Caucasian as could be, and his numerous dialects had no affinity with the type to which he was assigned.
Fischer in his classification divided man into seven races:—
1st.—Homo japeticus, divided into three varieties—Caucasicus, Arabicus and Indicus.
2nd.—H. Neptunianus, consisting of—1st, the Malays peopling the coasts of the islands of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, &c.; 2nd, New Zealanders and Islanders of the Pacific; and, 3rd, the Papuans.
3rd.—H. Scythicus. Three divisions, viz.: 1st, Calmucks and other Tartars; 2nd, Chinese and Japanese; and, 3rd, Esquimaux.
4th.—H. Americanus, and
5th.—H. Columbicus, belong to the American Continent.
6th.—H. Æthiopicus. The Negro.
7th.—H. Polynesius. The inland inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, of the Islands of the Indian Ocean, of Madagascar, New Guinea, New Holland, &c.
I think this system is the one that most commends itself from its clearness, but there are hardly two writers on ethnology who keep to the same classification.
Agassiz classifies by realms, and has eight divisions.
The Indian races with which we have now to deal are distributed, generally speaking, as follows:—
Caucasian.—(Homo japeticus, Bory and Fischer). Northerly, westerly, and in the Valley of the Ganges in particular, but otherwise generally distributed over the most cultivated parts of the Peninsula, comprising the Afghans (Pathans), Sikhs, Brahmins, Rajputs or Kshatryas of the north-west, the Arabs, Parsees, and Mahrattas of the west coast, the Singhalese of the extreme south, the Tamils of the east, and the Bengalis of the north-east.
Mongolians (H. Scythicus), inhabiting the chain of mountains to the north, from Little Thibet on the west to Bhotan on the east, and then sweeping downwards southerly to where Tenasserim joins the Malay Peninsula. They comprise the Hill Tribes of the N. Himalayas, the Goorkhas of Nepal, and the Hill Tribes of the north-eastern frontier, viz. Khamtis, Singphos, Mishmis, Abors, Nagas, Jynteas, Khasyas, and Garos. Those of the northern borders: Bhotias, Lepchas, Limbus, Murmis and Haioos; of the Assam Valley Kachari, Mech and Koch.
The Malays (H. Neptunianus) Tipperah and Chittagong tribes, the Burmese and Siamese.
Now comes the most difficult group to classify—the aborigines of the interior, and of the hill ranges of Central India, the Kols, Gonds, Bhils, and others which have certain characteristics of the Mongolian, but with skins almost as dark as the Negro, and the full eye of the Caucasian. The main body of these tribes, which I should feel inclined to classify under Fischer's H. Polynesius, have been divided by Indian ethnologists into two large groups—the Kolarians and Dravidians. The former comprise the Juangs, Kharrias, Mundas, Bhumij, Ho or Larka Kols, Santals, Birhors, Korwas, Kurs, Kurkus or Muasis, Bhils, Minas, Kulis. The latter contains the Oraons, Malers, Paharis of Rajamahal, Gonds and Kands.
The Cheroos and Kharwars, Parheyas, Kisans, Bhuikers, Boyars, Nagbansis, Kaurs, Mars, Bhunyiars, Bendkars form another great group apart from the Kolarians and Dravidians, and approximating more to the Indian variety of the Japetic class.
Then there are the extremely low types which one has no hesitation in assigning to the lowest form of the Polynesian group, such as the Andamanese, the jungle tree-men of Chittagong, Tipperah, and the vast forests stretching towards Sambhulpur.
On these I would now more particularly dwell as points of comparison with the rest of the animal kingdom. I have taken but a superficial view of the varieties of the higher types of the human race in India, for the subject, if thoroughly entered into, would require a volume of no ordinary dimensions; and those who wish to pursue the study further should read an able paper by Sir George Campbell in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society' for June 1866 (vol. xxxv. Part II.), Colonel Dalton's 'Ethnology of Bengal,' the Rev. S. Hislop's 'Memoranda,' and the 'Report of the Central Provinces Ethnological Committee.' There is as yet, however, very little reliable information regarding the wilder forms of humanity inhabiting dense forests, where, enjoying apparently complete immunity from the deadly malaria that proves fatal to all others, they live a life but a few degrees removed from the Quadrumana.
I have in my book on the Seonee District described the little colonies in the heart of the Bison jungles. Clusters of huts imbedded in tangled masses of foliage, surrounded by an atmosphere reeking with the effluvia of decaying vegetation, where, unheedful of the great outer world beyond their sylvan limits, the Gonds pass year after year of uneventful lives.
In some of these hamlets I was looked upon with positive awe, as being the first white man the Baigas had seen. But these simple savages rank high in the scale compared with some others, of whom we have as yet but imperfect descriptions.
Some years ago Mr. Piddington communicated to the Asiatic Society an account of some "Monkey-men" he came across on the borders of the Palamow jungle. He was in the habit of employing the aboriginal tribes to work for him, and on one occasion a party of his men found in the jungle a man and woman in a state of starvation, and brought them in. They were both very short in stature, with disproportionately long arms, which in the man were covered with a reddish-brown hair. They looked almost more like baboons than human beings, and their language was unintelligible, except that words here and there resembled those in one of the Kolarian dialects. By signs, and by the help of these words, one of the Dhangars managed to make out that they lived in the depths of the forest, but had to fly from their people on account of a blood feud. Mr. Piddington was anxious to send them down to Calcutta, but before he could do so, they decamped one night, and fled again to their native wilds. Those jungles are, I believe, still in a great measure unexplored; and, if some day they are opened out, it is to be hoped that the "Monkey-men" will be again discovered.[1]
1 There has been lately exhibited in London a child from Borneo which has several points in common with the monkey—hairy face and arms, the hair on the fore-arm being reversed, as in the apes.
The lowest type with which we are familiar is the Andamanese, and the wilder sort of these will hardly bear comparison with even the degraded Australian or African Bosjesman, and approximate in debasement to the Fuegians.
The Andamanese are small in stature—the men averaging about five feet, the women less. They are very dark, I may say black, but here the resemblance to the Negro ceases. They have not the thick lips and flat nose, nor the peculiar heel of the Negro. In habit they are in small degree above the brutes, architecture and agriculture being unknown. The only arts they are masters of are limited to the manufacture of weapons, such as spears, bows and arrows, and canoes. They wear no kind of dress, but, when flies and mosquitoes are troublesome, plaster themselves with mud. The women are fond of painting themselves with red ochre, which they lay thickly over their heads, after scraping off the hair with a flint-knife. They swim and dive like ducks, and run up trees like monkeys. Though affectionate to their children, they are ruthless to the stranger, killing every one who happens to be cast away on their inhospitable shores. They have been accused of cannibalism, but this is open to doubt. The bodies of those they have killed have been found dreadfully mutilated, almost pounded to a jelly, but no portion had been removed.[2]
2 Since the above was written there has been published in the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute,' vol. xii., a most interesting and exhaustive paper on these people by Mr. E. H. Man, F.R.G.S., giving them credit for much intelligence.
In the above description I speak of the savage Andamanese in his wild state, and not of the specimens to be seen at Port Blair, who have become in an infinitesimal degree civilised—that is to say, to the extent of holding intercourse with foreigners, making some slight additions to their argillaceous dress-suits, and understanding the principles of exchange and barter—though as regards this last a friend informs me that they have no notion of a token currency, but only understand the argumentum ad hominem in the shape of comestibles, so that your bargains, to be effectual, must be made within reach of a cookshop or grocery. The same friend tells me he learnt at Port Blair that there were marriage restrictions on which great stress was laid. This may be the case on the South Island; there is much testimony on the other side as regards the more savage Andamanese.
The forest tribes of Chittagong are much higher in the scale than the Andamanese, but they are nevertheless savages of a low type. Captain Lewin says: "The men wear scarcely any clothing, and the petticoat of the women is scanty, reaching only to the knee; they worship the terrene elements, and have vague and undefined ideas of some divine power which overshadows all. They were born and they die for ends to them as incomputable as the path of a cannon-shot fired into the darkness. They are cruel, and attach but little value to life. Reverence or respect are emotions unknown to them, they salute neither their chiefs nor their elders, neither have they any expression conveying thanks." There is, however, much that is interesting in these wild people, and to those who wish to know more I recommend Captain Lewin's account of 'The Hill Tracts of Chittagong.'
The monkeys of the Indian Peninsula are restricted to a few groups, of which the principal one is that of the Semnopitheci. These monkeys are distinguished not only by their peculiar black faces, with a ridge of long stiff black hair projecting forwards over the eyebrows, thin slim bodies and long tails, but by the absence of cheek pouches, and the possession of a peculiar sacculated stomach, which, as figured in Cuvier, resembles a bunch of grapes. Jerdon says of this group that, out of five species found on the continent there is only one spread through all the plains of Central and Northern India, and one through the Himalayas, whilst there are three well-marked species in the extreme south of the Peninsula; but then he omits at least four species inhabiting Chittagong, Tenasserim, Arracan, which also belong to the continent of India, though perhaps not to the actual Peninsula. Sir Emerson Tennent, in his 'Natural History of Ceylon,' also mentions and figures three species, of which two are not included in Jerdon's 'Mammals,' though incidentally spoken of. I propose to add the Ceylon Mammalia to the Indian, and therefore shall allude to these further on.
The next group of Indian monkeys is that of the Macaques or Magots, or Monkey Baboons of India, the Lal Bundar of the natives. They have simple stomachs and cheek pouches, which last, I dare say, most of us have noticed who have happened to give two plantains in succession to one of them.
Although numerically the Langurs or Entellus Monkeys form the most important group of the Quadrumana in India, yet the Gibbons (which are not included by Jerdon) rank highest in the scale, though the species are restricted to but three—Hylobates hooluck, H. lar and H. syndactylus. They are superior in formation (that is taking man as the highest development of the form, to which some people take objection, though to my way of thinking there is not much to choose between the highest type of monkey and the lowest of humanity, if we would but look facts straight in the face), and they are also vastly superior in intellect to either the Langurs or the Macaques, though inferior perhaps to the Ourangs.
Which, with the long arms of the Ourangs and the receding forehead of the Chimpanzee, possess the callosities of the true monkeys, but differ from them in having neither tail nor cheek pouches. They are true bipeds on the ground, applying the sole of the foot flatly, not, as Cuvier and others have remarked of the Ourangs, with the outer edge of the sole only, but flat down, as Blyth, who first mentions it, noticed it, with the thumb or big toe widely separated.
NATIVE NAMES.—Hooluck, Hookoo.
HABITAT.—Garo and Khasia Hi