148 ZOOLOGY. [PART II. 



assert never preys upon serpents. A writer in the 

 Ceylon Miscellany mentions, that they are often to be 

 seen " crossing rivers and frequenting mud-brooks near 

 Chilaw; the adjacent thickets affording them shelter, 

 and their food consisting of aquatic reptiles, crabs, and 

 mollusca." 1 



IV. KODENTIA. Squirrels. Smaller animals in great 

 numbers enliven the forests and lowland plains with 

 then: graceful movements. Squirrels 2 , of which there 

 are a great variety, make -their shrill metallic call heard 

 at early morning in the woods, and when sounding their 

 note of warning on the approach of a civet or a tree- 

 snake, the ears tingle with the loud trill of defiance, 

 which rings as clear and rapid as the running down of an 

 alarum, and is instantly caught up and re-echoed from 

 every side by their terrified playmates. 



One of the largest, belonging to a closely allied sub- 

 genus, is known as the " Flying Squirrel," 3 from its 

 being assisted in its prodigious leaps from tree to tree, 

 by a parachute formed by the skin of the flanks, 

 which on the extension of the limbs front and rear, is 

 laterally expanded from foot to foot. Thus buoyed up 

 in its descent, the spring which it is enabled to make 

 from one lofty tree to another resembles the flight of a 

 bird rather than the bound of a quadruped. Of these 

 pretty creatures there are two species, one common to 

 Ceylon and India, the other (Sciuropterus Layardii, 

 Kelaart) is peculiar to the island, and is by far the most 

 beautiful of the family. 



1 This is possibly the " musbilai " 

 or mouse-cat of Behar, which preys 

 upon birds and fish. Can it be the 

 Urvaof the Nepalese ( Urva cancrivwa, 

 Hodgson), which Mr. Hodgson de- 

 scribes as dwellirg in burrows, and 

 being carnivorous and ranivorous ? 

 Vide Jvurn. As. Soc. Seng., vol. vi. 

 p. 56. 



2 Of two kinds which frequent the 

 mountains, one which is peculiar to 

 Ceylon was discovered by Mr. Edgar 



L. Layard, who has done me the 

 honour to call it the Scittrm Tennentii. 

 Its dimensions are large, measuring 

 upwards of two feet from head to 

 tail. It is distinguished from the S. 

 mao-unts by the predominant black 

 colour of the upper surface of the 

 body, with the exception of a rusty 

 spot at the base of the ears. 



8 Pteromys oral., Ticket. P. pet- 

 aurista, Pallas. 



