344 MammMatia OF INDIA. 
seems habitually to pass. Its motion is somewhat slow, and it does not 
appear to have the same power of leaping or springing by which the 
rats in general avoid danger. Its food seems to be vegetable, the only 
contents of the stomach being the roots of the haryalee grass. Its 
habits are solitary (except when the female is bringing up her young) 
and diurnal, feeding in the mornings and evenings.” Dr. Jerdon says: 
“The Yanadees of Nellore catch this rat, surrounding the bush and 
seizing it as it issues forth, which its comparatively slow actions enable 
them to do easily. According to Sir Emerson Tennent the Malabar coolies 
are so fond of their flesh that they evince a preference for those districts 
in which the coffee-plantions are subject to their incursions, where they 
fry the rats in cocoanut-oil or convert them into curry.” Both he and 
Dr. Kellaart mention the migratory habits of this animal on the occur- 
rence of a scarcity of food. Kellaart says that in one day on such visits 
more than a thousand have been killed on one estate alone. 
No. 379. GOLUNDA MELTADA. 
The Softfurred Bush Rat (Jerdon’s No. 200). 
NaTivE Names, — Me¢tade, of Wuddurs; JZetta-yelka, Telegu of 
Yanadees ; Kera zlei, Canarese. 
HaspitTat.—Southern India and Ceylon. 
DeESCRIPTION.—Fur very soft ; above deep yellowish, olive brown or 
reddish-brown, with a mixture of fawn ; under fur lead colour; chin 
and under parts whitish; head short; muzzle sharp; ears long and 
hairy ; tail shorter than body, scaly, but scales covered with short black 
adpressed hairs ; feet pale. 
SizE.—Head and body, 33 to 54 inches ; tail, 2} to 44 inches. 
The specific name of this rat is an absurd corruption, such as is not 
unfrequent in Dr. Gray’s names, of the native settade, which means soft. 
According to that accurate observer Sir Walter Elliot, “the me¢tade lives 
entirely in cultivated fields in pairs or small societies of five or six ; * 
making a very slight and rude hole in the root of a bush, or merely 
harbouring among the heap of stones thrown together in the fields, in 
the deserted burrow of the £o,f or contenting itself with the deep cracks 
and fissures formed in the black soil during the hot months. Great 
numbers perish annually when these collapse and fill up at the com- 
mencement of the rains. ‘The monsoon of 1826 having been deficient 
in the usual fall of rain at the commencement of the season, the 
mettades bred in such numbers as to become a perfect plague. They 
ate up the seed as soon as sown, and continued their ravages when 
the grain approached to maturity, climbing up the stalks of jowaree 
and cutting off the ear to devour the grain with greater facility. I 
* Tn this case probably parents and young. 
+ Nesokia providens, 
