Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.9966
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    ‘The pig-tailed monkey from the Island of Sumatra...’ [Pig tailed macaque]

    Date
    1755
    Creator
    George Edwards (1694 - 1773, British) , Ornithologist
    Object type
    Library reference
    38029
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 286mm
    width (print): 220mm
    Subject
    Biology
       > Zoology
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
    Description
    Zoological study of the Pig tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina), posed upright and holding a wooden staff. With a profile detail of the monkey’s head.

    Plate 214 from chapter 4 of Gleanings of natural history, exhibiting figures of quadrupeds, birds, insects, plants, &c..., by George Edwards, volume 1 (London, for the author, 1758). The macaque was owned by George Edwards and was described by him in the accompanying text: “This Monkey was brought from the East Indies, in the year 1752...it was about the bigness of a common house-cat...an uncommon species of Monkey, it being the first I remember to have seen of its kind: it was a male; but since I purchased this, which lived a year with me, I have seen a female of the same species shewn in Bartholomew Fair, London. It was larger by half than mine, which I carried to compare with it: they seemed highly pleased with each other’s company, though it was the first time of their meeting...”

    The plate is inscribed very faintly: “Published according to Act of Parliament January the first 1755 George.Edwards Delin: et Sculp.”
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Asia
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