328 MAMMALIA OF INDIA... 
albescent ; extremities pale, almost flesh-coloured ; ears rather long ; 
head rather elongated ; tail equal to and sometimes exceeding head 
and body. 
SizE.—Head and body, from 84 to 94 inches; tail, from 9 to 93 
inches. 
Jerdon states that this rat, which Dr. Gray considered identical with 
M. decumanus (see ‘Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.’ vol. xv. 1845, p. 267), 
“is to be found throughout India, not habitually living in holes, but 
coming into houses at night; and, as Blyth remarks, often found 
resting during the day on the j#7/-mil or venetian blinds. It makes a 
nest in mango-trees or in thick bushes and hedges. Hodgson calls it 
the common house rat of Nepal, and Kellaart also calls it the small 
house rat of Trincomalee.” It is probable that this is the rat which 
used to trouble me much on the outskirts of the station of Nagpore. It 
used to come in at night, evidently from outside, for the house was not 
one in which even a mouse could have got shelter, with masonry roof, 
and floors paved with stone flags. Kellaart evidently considered it as 
distinct from AZ. decumanus, which he stated to be rare in houses in the 
town of Trincomalee, though abundant in the dockyard. 
No. 341. MUS RUFESCENS. 
The Rufescent Tree Rat ( Jerdon’s No. 180). 
NatTIvE NAMES.— Gachua-indur, Bengali; Ghas-meeyo, Singhalese. 
Hasitat.—India generally ; Ceylon. 
DESCRIPTION.—Fur above pale yellowish-brown; under fur lead 
coloured, mixed with longer piles of stiff, broad, plumbeous black 
tipped hairs; head long; muzzle narrow; whiskers long and _ black ; 
ears large, subovate, slightly clad with fine hairs ; eyes large ; incisor 
teeth yellow ; feet brownish above, but the sides and toes are whitish ; 
tail longer than head and body. / 
SizE.—Head and body, from 5% to 72 inches; tail from 63 to 
8} inches. 
This is AZ. flavescens of Elliot, and is so noticed in Kellaart’s 
‘Prodromus.’ He calls it “the white-bellied tree-rat of Ceylon,” and 
he states that it lives on trees or in the ceiling of houses in preference 
to the lower parts. Sir Walter Elliot observed it chiefly in stables and 
out-houses at Dharwar. According to Buchanan-Hamilton it makes 
its nests in cocoanut-trees and bamboos, bringing forth five or six young 
in August and September. ‘They eat grains, which they collect in 
their nests, also young cocoanuts. They enter houses at night, but do 
not live there.” Kellaart’s JZ ¢e¢ragonurus is a variety of this, if not 
identical. 
