32 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap, t 
comfortable distance of the leopard, before he dis- 
covered the cause of the unusual dismay amongst the 
monkeys overhead. 
It is said, but I have never been able personally to 
verify the fact, that the leopard of Ceylon exhibits a 
peculiarity in being unable entirely to retract its claws 
within their sheaths. 
There is another piece of curious folk lore, in con- 
nexion with the leopard. The natives assert that it 
devours the kaolin clay called by them Jdri-mattie 1 
in a very peculiar way. They say that the cheetah 
places it in lumps beside him, and then gazes intently 
on the sun, till on turning his eyes on the clay, every 
piece appears of a red colour like flesh, when he in- 
stantly devours it. 
They likewise allege that the female cheetah never 
produces more than one litter of whelps. 
Of the lesser feline species, the number and variety 
in Ceylon is inferior to those of India. The Palm-cat 2 
lurks by day among the fronds of the coco-nut palms, 
and by night makes destructive forays on the fowls of 
the villagers; and, in order to suck the blood of its 
victim, inflicts a wound so small as to be almost imper- 
ceptible. The glossy genette 3 , the " Civet " of Euro- 
peans, is common in the northern province, where the 
Tamils confine it in cages for the sake of its musk, which 
they collect from the wooden bars on which it rubs it- 
self. Edrisi, the Moorish geographer, writing in the 
twelfth century, enumerates musk as one of the pro- 
ductions then exported from Ceylon. 4 
1 See Sir J. E. Tennent's Cey- 4 Edrisi, Geogr. sec. vii. Jau- 
lon, vol. i. p. 31. berts's translation, t. ii. p. 72. In 
2 Paradoxurns typtl9, F. Guv. connexion with cats, a Singhalese 
3 Viyerra Indica, Geoffr., Hodgs. gentleman has described to me a 
