PLATACANTHOMTS LASICRCJS, 211 



clefts in the rocks and hollow trees, is said to hoard ears of grain 

 and roots, seldom comes into the native huts, and in that particular 

 neighbourhood the hill-men tell nie they are very numerous. I know 

 they are to be found in the rocky mountains of Travancore ; but I 

 never met with them on the plains." In a further communication he 

 remarks : " T have been spending the last three weeks in the Ghats, 

 and among other things had a gi-eat hunt for the new spiny dormice. 

 They are most abundant, I find, in the elevated vales and ravines, 

 living only in the magnificent old trees found there, in which they 

 hollow out little cavities, filling them with leaves and moss. The hUl 

 people call them the ' pepper-rat,' from their destroying large quantities 

 of ripe pepper (Piper nigrum). Angely and jack-fruit (Artocarpus 

 ovalifolia and integrifolia) are much subject to their ravages. Large 

 numbers of the Shunda 2}alni [Caruota) are found in the hills, and 

 toddy is collected from them : these dormice eat through the covei'ing 

 of the pot as suspended, and enjoy themselves. Two were brought me 

 in the pots half-drowned. I procured in one morning sixteen specimens. 

 The method employed in obtaining them was to tie long bamboos (with 

 their little branches left on them to climb by) to the trees, and when 

 the hole was reached, the man cut the entrance large enough to admit 

 liis hand, and took out the nest with the animals rolled up in it, put 

 the whole in a b;ig made of bark, and brought it down. They actually 

 reached the bottom sometimes without being disturbed : it was very 

 wet, cold weather, and they may have been somewhat torpid ; but I 

 started a large brown rat at the foot of one of the trees, which ran up 

 the stem into a hole, and four dormice were out in a minute fi'om it, 

 ajiparently in terror of their large friend. Tliere were no traces of 

 hoarding in any of the holes, but the soft bark of the trees was a good 

 deal gnawed in places. I noticed that when their tails were elevated 

 the bail's were perfectly erect, like a bottle-brush." 

 Anotlier rat has been made the type of the 



Gen. GoLUXDA, Gray. 



Chm: — IMolai's when perfect low, with a broad flat crown ; the cross 

 ridges of the crown of the upper grinders divided into three distinct, 

 slightly -raised tubercles ; upper incisors grooved. 



Two species are classed under this by Blyth, which are apparently 

 sufficiently distinct in genei'al feature as well as in habits. 



p2 



