188 MURINE. 



Length, head and body 7 inches ; tail 6 ; head 1-^^ ; ear ^^ths ; fore- 

 palm -j^ths ; hind-palm 1^^. Another measured, head and body 8^ ; 

 tail 6 ; hind-foot 1-|. 



Hodgson describes hig^J/. ijyctoris as follows : — " Chai-acterized by its 

 bluff face with short thick muzzle, and by its short tail. Pelage of two 

 sorts, with the long piles sufficiently abundant ; colour dusky-brown with 

 a very vague rufous tinge; below fulvescent; long hairs black, rest with 

 hoary bases and black points ; inner piles mostly dusky. Length, snoiit 

 to vent 7 inches ; tail 4| ; head 1| ; ears |-|ths ; palm |ths ; planta 1}, 

 I think there can be very little doubt that this is the same as the 

 hoh of Soixthern India, but I do not think that the specimen in the 

 British Museum, with that name attached, described by Gray^ is the 

 same, but leather that of one of the allied species.* 



This large field-rat is found throughout India, ranging up to a con- 

 siderable altitude, above 7,000 feet, and also in Ceylon, but is not hitherto 

 recorded from the east of the Bay of Bengal. 



Mr. Elliot has given the following interesting accoxxnt of the habits 

 of this rat : — 



" In its habits it is solitary, fierce, living secluded in spacious burrows, 

 in which it stores up large quantities of grain during the harvest, and 

 when that is consumed, lives upon the Imrycdee grass and other roots. 

 The female produces from eight to ten at a birth which she sends out of 

 her burrow as soon as they are able to provide for themselves. When 

 irritated, it utters a low grunting cry like the Bandicoot. 



The race of i:)eople known by the name of "SVuddurs, or tank-diggers, 



capture this animal in great numbers as an article of food, and during the 



harvest they plunder their earths of the grain stored up for their winter 



consumption, which in favourable localities they find in such quantities 



as to subsist almost entirely upon it during that season of the year. A 



single burrow will sometimes yield as much as half a seer (1 lb.) of grain, 



G / containing even whole ears of jowaree (IlokJnis sorghum'). 



(/ / The hoh abounds in the richly cultivated black plains or cotton-ground, 



T^" / but the heavy rains often inundate their eai'ths, destroy their stores, and 



y force them to seek a new habitation. I dug up a winter biuTOw in August, 



1833, situated near the old one, which was deserted from this cause. The 



animal had left the level ground, and constructed its new habitation in the 



sloping bank of an old well. The entrance was covered with a mound of 



* Vide p. 192. 



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