Rats. Among the multifarious inhabitants to which the forest affords at once a home and provender is the tree rat', which forms its nest on the branches, and by turns makes its visits to the dwellings of the natives, frequenting the ceilings in preference to the lower parts of houses. Here it is incessantly followed by the ratsnake2, whose domestication is encouraged by the native servants, in consideration of its services in destroying vermin. I had one day an opportunity, of surprising a snake which had just seized on a rat of this description, and of covering it suddenly with a glass shade, before it had time to swallow its prey. The serpent, which appeared stunned by its own capture, allowed the rat to escape from its jaws, which cowered at one side of the glass in the most pitiable state of trembling terror. The two were left alone for some moments, and on my return to them the snake was as before in the same attitude of sullen stupor. On setting them at liberty, the rat bounded towards the nearest fence; but quick as lightning it was followed by its pursuer, which seized it before it could gain the hedge, through which I saw the snake glide with its victim in its jaws. Another indigenous variety of the rat is that which made its appearance for the first time in the coffee plantations on the Kandyan hills in the year 1847, and in such swarms does it infest them, that as many as a thousand have been killed in a single day on one estate. In order to reach the buds and blossoms of the coffee, it cuts such slender branches, as would not sustain its weight, and feeds as they fall to the ground; and so delicate and sharp are its incisors, that the twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a knife. The coffee-rat3 is an insular variety of the Mus hirsutus of W. Elliot, found in South 1 There are two species of the tree rat in Ceylon: M. rufescens, Gray ; (M. flavescens, Elliot;) and Mus nemoralis, Blyth. 2 Coryphodon Blumenbachii. ern India. They inhabit the forests, making their nests among the roots of the trees, and 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 these incursions, where they fry the rats in 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. Its nests, when rifled, are frequently found to contain considerable quantities of rice, stored up against the dry season. Porcupine.-The Porcupine2 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 that any trap can be so disguised, or any bait be made sufficiently alluring, as to lead to its capture. The usual expedient 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. 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. The flesh is esteemed a delicacy in Ceylon, and in consistency, colour, and flavour, it very much resembles that of a young pig. 1 Mus bandicota, Beckst. The English term bandicoot is a corruption of the Telinga name pundikoku, literally pig-rat. Hystrix leucurus, Sykes. 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 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 mailcovered tail. The feet of the Pengolin are armed with powerful claws, which they double in in walking like the Ant-eater of Brazil. These they use in extracting their favourite food, the termites, 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. Of two specimens which I kept alive at different times, one from the vicinity of Kandy, about two feet in length, was a gentle and affectionate creature, which, 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 ascended 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. In both, the scales of the back are a cream-coloured white, with a tinge of red in the specimen which came from Chilaw, probably acquired by the insinuation of the Cabook dust which abounds along the western coast of the island. Generally speaking, they were quiet during the day, and grew restless as evening and night approached. VI. RUMINANTIA. The Gaur.-Besides the deer and 1 Manis pentadactyla, Linn. some varieties of the humped ox, which have been introduced from the opposite continent of India, Ceylon has probably but one other indigenous ruminant, the buffalo. There is a tradition that the gaur, found in the extremity of the Indian peninsula, was at one period a native of the Kandyan mountains; but as Knox speaks of one which in his time "was kept among the king's creatures" at Kandy", and his account of it tallies with that of the Bos Gaurus of Hindostan, it would appear even then to have been a rarity. A place between Neura-ellia and Adam's Peak bears the name of Gowra-ellia, and it is not impossible that the animal may yet be discovered in some of the imperfectly explored regions of the island. I have heard of an instance in which a very old Kandyan, residing in the mountains near the Horton Plains, asserted that when young he had seen what he believed to have been a gaur, and which he described as between an elk and a buffalo in size, dark brown in colour, and very scantily provided with hair. Oxen. Oxen are used by the peasantry both in ploughing and in tempering the mud in the wet paddy fields before sowing the rice; and when the harvest is reaped they "tread out the corn," after the immemorial custom of the East. The wealth of the native chiefs and landed proprietors frequently consists in their herds of bullocks, which they hire out to their dependents during the seasons for agricultural labour; and as they already supply them with land to be tilled, and lend the seed which is to crop it, the further contribution of this portion of the labour serves to render the dependence of the peasantry on the chiefs and head-men complete. The cows are worked equally with the oxen; and 1 Bubalus buffelus, Gray. 2 Historical Relation of Ceylon, &c. A. D. 1681. Book i. c. 6. 3 KELAART, Farna Zeylan., p. 87. as the calves are always permitted to suck them, milk is an article which the traveller can rarely hope to procure in a Kandyan village. From their constant exposure at all seasons, the cattle in Ceylon, both those employed in agriculture and on the roads, are subject to the most devastating murrains, which sweep them away by thousands. So frequent is the recurrence of these calamities, and so extended their ravages, that they exercise a serious influence over the commercial interests of the colony, by reducing the facilities of agriculture, and augmenting the cost of carriage during the most critical periods of the coffee season. A similar disorder, probably peripneumonia, frequently carries off the cattle in Assam and other hill countries on the continent of India; and there, as in Ceylon, the inflammatory symptoms in the lungs and throat, and the internal derangement and external eruptive appearances, seem to indicate that the disease is a feverish influenza, attributable to neglect and exposure in a moist and variable climate; and that its prevention might be hoped for, and the cattle preserved by the simple expedient of more humane and considerate treatment, especially by affording them cover at night. During my residence in Ceylon an incident occurred at Neura-ellia, which invested one of these pretty animals with an heroic interest. A little cow, belonging to an English gentleman, was housed, together with her calf, near the dwelling of her owner, and being aroused during the night by her furious bellowing, the servants, on hastening to the byre, found her goring a leopard, which had stolen in to attack the calf. She had get him into a corner, and whilst lowing incessantly to call for help, she continued to pound him with her horns. The wild animal, apparently stupified by her unexpected violence, was detained by her till despatched by a gun. |