84 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
merly is due to impregnated corks and insufficient washing before the 
bottle was filled. The musk-rat in a quiescent state is not offensive, and 
its odour is more powerful at certain seasons. I am peculiarly sensitive 
to smells, and dislike that of musk in particular, yet I have no objec- 
tion to a musk-rat running about my room quietly if I do not startle 
him. I never allow one to be killed, and encourage their presence in 
the house, for I think the temporary inconvenience of a whiff of musk is 
amply repaid by the destruction of the numerous objectionable insects 
which lurk in the corners of Indian houses. ‘The notion that they do 
damage by gnawing is an erroneous one, the mischief done by mice and 
rats being frequently laid to their charge ; they have not the powerful 
dentition necessary for nibbling through wood and mortar. In my book 
on ‘Camp Life in Seonee,’ I say a good word for my little friends, 
and relate as follows an experiment which I tried many years ago: 
“We had once been talking at mess about musk-rats; some one 
declared a bottle of sherry had been tainted, and nobody defended the 
poor little beast but myself, and I was considerably laughed at. How- 
ever, one night soon after, as I was dressing before dinner, I heard a 
musk-rat squeak in my room. Here wasa chance. Shutting the door, 
I laid a clean pocket-handkerchief on the ground next to the wall, 
knowing the way in which the animal usually skirts round a room; on 
he came and ran over the handkerchief, and then, seeing me, he turned 
and went back again. I then headed him once more and quietly turned 
him ; and thus went on till J had made him run over the handkerchief five 
times. I then took it up, and there was not the least smell. I then went 
across to the mess house, and, producing the handkerchief, asked several 
of my brother officers if they could perceive any peculiar smell about 
it. No, none of them could. ‘Well, all I know is,’ said I, ‘that I have 
driven a musk-rat five times over that pocket-handkerchief just now.’ ” 
When I was at Nagpore in 1864 I made friends with one of these 
shrews, and it would come out every evening at my whistle and take grass- 
hoppers out of my fingers. It seemed to be very short-sighted, and did 
not notice the insect till quite close to my hand, when, with a short swift 
spring, it would pounce upon its prey. 
A correspondent of Zhe Asian, writing from Ceylon, gives an account 
of a musk-rat attacking a large frog, and holding on to it in spite of 
interference. 
McMaster says that these shrews will also eat bread, and adds: 
“insects, however, form their chief diet, so they thus do us more good 
than harm. I once disturbed one that evidently had been eating part 
of a large scorpion.” 
