434 THE LACCADIVES AND THE WEST COAST. 
as undesirable colonists, the latter, they put up with, but derived 
no great benefit from them, seeing that mongooses are not tree 
climbers, and the rats stick to the crowns of the trees. I am 
aware that the official record claims that the mongooses drove the 
rats up the trees ; were this a fact, they could hardly have been 
more unprofitably employed, it being just owt of the trees that 
it is essential to drive the rats, but as a matter of fact the poor 
Herpestes (the only specimen we got was vitticollis) had _no- 
thing to do with the matter. If they did no good, at least 
they did no harm in this direction—since at no time did the 
rat ever reside anywhere than in the tree tops, and seeing that 
they have plenty to eat there, and nothing to eat below, it could 
hardly be expected that they should, 
Well, having “driven all the rats up the trees,” and I per- 
ceive from the reports that this imaginary feat was deemed a 
decided step in the right direction, it occurred to some one to 
send down a lot of Owls to drive them down again. The con- 
ception was really a grand one—between two fires, what should 
the wretched rats do, but curse the collector and die ? 
Unfortunately, as is too commonly the case in India, popular 
prejudice interfered to mar the success of a paternal Govern- 
ment’s beneficent schemes. 
When the Owls arrived, (magnificent Eagle Owls, says the 
report, but practically they were Wood Owls), the people were 
greatly exercised. “What ails the Sirkar” said the elders 
«Ts it not enough that they deluge us with snakes, that they 
flood us with long-tailed ground rats (mongooses) that kill 
our chickens? and now they want to afflict us with these 
devil birds, whose cries keep us all awake at night, and make 
the children scream, and the old women foretell death and 
ruin ! Certainly we are the Sirkars slaves—what ever they order 
we obey, but—we won’t have the devil birds.” The upshot 
was, that four pairs of the Owls were taken to Betra-Par, where 
they might, without offence, make night hideous, and the 
remaining two, were let loose somewhere on the sly. It is true 
there are no rats on Betra-Par, and that if there were, it would 
not signify, but que vaulec vous? the designs of a great and 
benevolent Government are not to be allowed to come to 
naught ; the Owls had to be disposed of somehow ; in political 
crisises, compromises have to be accepted, and if the unfortunate 
and guiltless Owls transported for life to meet an untimely 
grave on the desolate shores of Betra-Par, do seem to have 
had bard measure meted to them, we must remember that 
everything was done with the best possible intentions, and that 
even in the highest states of civilization blameless individuals 
have at time to suffer pro bono publico. 
