42 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. I. 



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," 1 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 by 

 far the most beautiful of the family. 



Rats. — Among the multifarious inhabitants to which 

 the forest affords at once a home and provender is the 

 tree rat 2 , which forms its nest on the branches, and by 

 turns makes its visits to the dwellings of the natives, 

 frequenting the ceilings in preference to the lower parts 

 of houses. Here it is incessantly followed by the rat- 

 snake 3 , whose domestication is encouraged by the ser- 



by Mr. Edgar L. Layard, who has at the base of the ears. 



done me the honour to call it the 1 Pteromys oral., TicJcel. P. pe- 



Sciurus Tennentii. Its dimensions taurista, Pallas. 



are large, measuring upwards of 2 There are two species of the 



two feet from head to tail. It is tree rat in Ceylon : M. rufescens, 



distinguished from the 8. macrurus Gray ; (M. flavescens, Elliot ;) and 



by the predominant black colour of Mus nemoralis, Blyth. 



the upper surface of the body, 3 Coryphodon Blumenbachii, 



with the exception of a rusty spot Merr. 



