habit the forests, making their nests among the roots of the trees, and feeding, in the season, on the ripe seeds of the nilloo. Like the lemmings of Norway and Lapland,

they migrate in vast numbers on the occurrence of a scarcity of their ordinary food. The Malabar coolies are so fond of their flesh, that they evince a preference for those districts in which the coffee plantations are subject to their incursions, where they fry the rats in coco-nut oil, or convert them into curry.

Bandicoot. Another favourite article of food with the coolies is the pig-rat or Bandicoot ', which attains on those hills the weight of two or three pounds, and grows to nearly the length of two feet. As it feeds on grain and roots, its flesh is said to be delicate, and much resembling young pork.

Mus bandicota, Beckst. The English term bandicoot is a cor

ruption of the Telinga name pandikoku, literally pig-rat.

Its nests, when rifled, are frequently found to contain considerable quantities of rice, stored up against the dry season.

1

Porcupine.-The Porcupine is another of the rodentia which has drawn down upon itself the hostility of the planters, from its destruction of the young coconut palms, to which it is a pernicious and persevering, but withal so crafty, a visitor, that it is with difficulty any trap can be so disguised, or any bait made so alluring, as to lead to its capture. The usual expedient in Ceylon is to place some of its favourite food at the extremity of a trench, so narrow as to prevent the porcupine turning, whilst the direction of his quills effectually bars his retreat backwards. On a newly planted coconut tope, at Hang-welle, within a few miles of Colombo,

I have heard of as many as twenty-seven being thus captured in a single night; but such success is rare. The more ordinary expedient is to smoke them out by burning straw at the apertures of their burrows. At Ootacamund, on the continent of the Dekkan, springguns have been used with great success by the Superintendent of the Horticultural Gardens; placing them so as to sweep the runs of the porcupines. The flesh is esteemed a delicacy in Ceylon, and in consistency, colour, and flavour it very much resembles young pork.

V. EDENTATA. Pengolin. Of the Edentata the only example in Ceylon is the scaly ant-eater, called by the Singhalese, Caballaya, but usually known by its Malay name of Pengolin', a word indicative of its faculty, when alarmed, of "rolling itself up" into a compact ball, by bending its head towards its stomach, arching its back into a circle, and securing all by a powerful fold of its mail-covered tail. The feet of the pengolin are armed with powerful claws, which in walking they double in, like the ant-eater of Brazil. These they use in extracting their favourite food from ant-hills and decaying wood. When at liberty, they burrow in the dry ground to a depth of seven or eight feet, where they reside in pairs, and produce annually one or two young.

2

Of two specimens which I kept alive at different times, one, about two feet in length, from the vicinity of Kandy, was a gentle and affectionate creature, which,

1 Manis pentadactyla, Linn.

2 I am assured that there is a hedge-hog in Ceylon; but as I have never seen it, I cannot tell whether it belongs to either of the two species known in India (Erinaceus mentalis and E.collaris)-nor can I vouch for its existence there at all. But the fact was told to

me, in connexion with the statement, that its favourite dwelling is in the same burrow with the pengolin. The popular belief in this is attested by a Singhalese proverb, in relation to an intrusive personage; the import of which is that he is like "a hedge-hog in the den of a pengolin."

after wandering over the house in search of ants, would attract attention to its wants by climbing up my knee, laying hold of my leg with its prehensile tail. The other, more than double that length, was caught in the jungle near Chilaw, and brought to me in Colombo. I had always understood that the pengolin was unable to climb trees; but the one last mentioned frequently as

cended a tree in my garden, in search of ants; and this it effected by means of its hooked feet, aided by an oblique grasp of the tail. The ants it seized by extending its round and glutinous tongue along their tracks; and in the stomach of one which was opened after death, I found a quantity of small stones and gravel, which had been taken to facilitate digestion. In both specimens in my possession the scales of the back

were a cream-coloured white, with a tinge of red in that which came from Chilaw, probably acquired by the insinuation of the Cabook dust which abounds along the western coast of the island.

Of the habits of the pengolin I found that very little

SKELETON OF PENGOLIN.

was known by the natives, who regard it with aversion, one name given to it being the "Negombo Devil." Those kept by me were, generally speaking, quiet during the day, and grew restless and active as evening and night approached. Both had been taken near rocks, in the hollows of which they had their dwelling, but owing to their slow power of motion, they were unable to reach their hiding place when overtaken. When frightened, they rolled themselves instantly into a rounded ball; and such was the powerful force of muscle, that the strength of a man was insufficient to uncoil it. In reconnoitring they made important use of the tail, resting upon it and their hind legs, and holding themselves nearly erect, to command a view of their object. The strength of this powerful limb

will be perceived from the accompanying drawing of