PIATACANTHOMTS LASIUBTJS. 211 



and hollow trees, is said to hoard ears of grain and roots, seldom comes 

 into the native huts, and in that particular neighbourhood the hill-men 

 tell me they are very numerous. I know they are to be found in the rocky 

 mountains of Travancore ; but I never met with them on the plains." In 

 a further communication he remarks : " I have been spending the last 

 three weeks in the Ghats, and among other things had great hunt for the 

 new spiny-dormice. They are most abundant I find in the elevated vales 

 and ravines, living only in the magnificent old trees there found, in which 

 they hollow out little cavities filling them with leaves and moss. The 

 hUl-people call them- the 'pepper-rat', from their destroying large quanti- 

 ties of ripe pepper (Piper nigrum). Angely and jack-fruit (Artocarpus 

 ovalifolia and integrifolia) are much subject to their ravages. Large num- 

 bers of the SJamda palm (Caryota) are found in the hills, and toddy is 

 collected from them ; these dormice eat through the covering of the pot 

 as suspended, and enjoy themselves. Two were brought me in the pots 

 half drowned. I procured in one morning sixteen specimens. The me- 

 thod employed in obtaining them was to tie long bamboos (with their 

 Uttle branches left on them to climb by) to the trees, and when the hole 

 was reached, the man cut the entrance large enough to admit his hand, 

 and took out the nest with the animals rolled up in it, put the whole in 

 a bag made of bark, and brought it down. They actually reached the 

 bottom sometimes without being disturbed ; it was very wet cold weather, 

 and they may have been somewhat torpid ; but I started a large brown rat 

 at the foot of one of the trees which ran up the stem into a hole, and 

 four dormice were out in a minute from it, apparently in terror of their 

 large friend. There were no traces of hoarding in any of the holes, but 

 the soft bark of the trees was a good deal gnawed in places. I noticed 

 that when their tails were elevated the hairs were perfectly erect like a 

 bottle-brush. 



Another rat has been made the type of 



Gen. GoLUNDA, Geay. 



Char. — Molars when perfect low, with a broad flat crown ; the cross 

 ridges of the crown of the upper grinders divided into three distinct, 

 shghtly raised tubercles ; upper incisors grooved. 



Two species are classed under this by Blyth, which are apparently 

 sufficiently distinct in general feature as well as in habits. 



