THE MUSANG. 



247 



One of these animals, which was kept in the Paris Museum, was accustomed to sleep 

 during the day, coiled round upon its bed, and even by night appeared to feel a distaste 

 for exertion. When evening came on, it would rouse itself from its slumbers, take food 

 and drink, and again resign itself to sleep. 



MUSANG. Parsdoxurus Musaaga. 



The MUSANG of Java is, although a destroyer of rats and mice, rather a pest to 

 the coffee-plantations, which it ravages in such a mawner as to have earned the title 

 of the Coffee Rat. It feeds largely upon the berries of the coffee shrub, choosing 

 only the ripest fruit, stripping them of their membranous covering, and so eating them. 

 It is a remarkable fact that the berries thus eaten appear to undergo no change by 

 the process of digestion, so that the natives, who are free from over scrupulous prejudices, 

 collect the rejected berries, and are thus saved the trouble of picking and clearing them 

 from the husk. 



However, the injury which this creature does to the coffee berries is more than com- 

 pensated by its very great usefulness as a coffee planter. For, as these berries are 

 uninjured in their passage through the body of the animal, and are in their ripest state, 

 they take root where they lie, and in due course of time spring up and form new coffee 

 plantations, sometimes in localities where they are not expected. It may be that although 

 the coffee seeds undergo no visible change in the interior of the Musang, they imbibe the 

 animal principle, and thus become more fitted for the soil than if they had been planted 

 without the intermediate agency of the creature. 



The Musang is not content with coffee-berries and other vegetable food, although it 

 seems to prefer a vegateble to an animal diet. When pressed by hunger, it seeks eagerly 

 after various small quadrupeds and birds, and is often a pertinacious robber of the hen- 

 roosts. 



The habits of the Musang are well described by G. Bennett, in his " Wanderings in 

 New South Wales ;" 



"On the i4th ofMay 1833, I purchased one of these animal from a native canoe, 

 which came off to the ship on the coast of Java. It is commonly known among 

 Europeans by the name of the * Java Cat,' and is a native of Java, Sumatra, and 

 perhaps other of the eastern Islands. This specimen was young and appeared very 

 tame. The native from whom I procured it, had it enclosed in a bamboo cage, in which 

 I also kept it for a short time. This color of the back is blackish, intermingled with 

 black neck and abdomen of a yellowish color ; the eyes are full and large, of a 

 yellowish brown color : pupil perpendicular, becoming dilated at night. It resembles 

 the cat is being more of a night than a day animal. 



