n8 COFFEE: ITS CULTIVATION AND PROFIT. 



chiefly in remote and newly opened forests, where 

 their visits afford the Englishman a chance of a 

 little sport at his doors after the day's work is 

 done a successful shot stocking his larder with 

 very good venison, and its echoes effectually scaring 

 off, for a long time, the remainder of the herd. 

 Jackals and monkeys take a few of the sweet, ripe 

 Coffee fruit, but so small a quantity as to be insig- 

 nificant. Not so the coffee rat (Golunda Ellioti). 

 This quaint little animal is sometimes an enemy of 

 importance. Its usual habitat is in the jungle, but 

 when pressed by hunger it comes forth and fares, 

 no doubt luxuriously, on the buds, blossoms, and 

 bark of the planter's bushes. If twigs are too 

 slender to bear its weight, it nibbles them through 

 and enjoys the feast upon the ground. The young 

 green bark is eaten, the leaves dragged into the 

 underwood and used for nests. These nests, placed 

 in a thick bush, are about 6 or 9 inches in diameter. 

 " Round and round the bush," Sir Walter Elliot 

 says, " are sometimes observed small beaten path- 

 ways, along which the little animal seems habitually 

 to pass. Its motion is slow, and it does not seem 

 to have the power of leaping and springing by 

 which the rats in general avoid danger. Its habits 

 are solitary and diurnal, feeding in the mornings 

 and evenings." 



Dr. Jerdon, of Nellore, remarks: " Yanadees 

 of Nellore catch this rat, surrounding the nest bush 

 and seizing it as it issues forth, which its com- 



