32 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. L 



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 kiri-rnattie 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 w T ooden 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 7 vol. i. p. 31. berts's translation, t. ii. p. 72. In 



2 Paradoxurus typus, F. Cuv. connexion with cats, a Singhalese 



3 Viverra Indica, Geoffr., Hodgs. gentleman has described to me a 



