CiiAr. I.] THE EAT-SNAK3. 149 



Rats. — Among the multiftxrious inhabitants to wliich 

 tliG forest affords at once a home and provender is the 

 tiee rat\ which forms its nest on the brandies, and by 

 turns makes its visits to the dweUings of the natives, 

 frequenting the ceihngs in preference to the lower parts 

 of liouses. Here it is incessantly followed by the rat- 

 snake^, whose domestication is encouraged by the native 

 servants, in consideration of its services in destroying 

 vermin. I had one day an opportunity of surprising a 

 snake which had just seized on a rat of this description, 

 and of covering it suddenly with a glass shade, before it 

 had time to swallow its prey. The serpent, which ap- 

 peared stunned by its own capture, allowed the rat to 

 escape from its jaws, which cowered at one side of the 

 glass in the most pitiable state 'of trembUng terror. The 

 two were left alone for some moments, and on my re- 

 turn to them the snake was as before in the same attitude 

 of sullen stupor. On setting them at liberty, the rat 

 bounded towards the nearest fence ; but quick as light- 

 ning it was followed by its pursuer, wliich seized it before 

 it could gain the hedge, through which 1 saw the snake 

 glide with its victim in its jaws. 



Another indigenous variety of the rat is that which 

 made its appearance for the first time in the coffee plan- 

 tations on the Kandyan hills in the year 1847, and in 

 such swarms does it infest them, that as many as a thou- 

 sand have been killed in a single day on one estate. In 

 order to reach the buds and blossoms of the coffee, it 

 cuts such slender branches, as would not sustain its 

 weight, and feeds as they fall to the ground ; and so deli- 

 cate and sharp are its incisors, that the twigs thus de- 

 stroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with 

 a knife. The coffee-rat ^ is an insular variety of the Mus 

 hirsutus of W. Elliot, found in Southern India. They 



^ There are two species of the tree 1 ^ Corypliodon Bhimonbachii. 

 rat in Ceylon : INI. rufescens, Gra;/ ; ^ Golimda EUioti, Grai/. 



(M. flavescens, Elliot ;) and Mus ne- 

 moralis, lilyth. 1 



L 3 



