Porcupine.—­The Porcupine[1] is another of the rodentia which has drawn down upon itself the hostility of the planters, from its destruction of the young coconut palms, to which it is a pernicious and persevering, but withal so crafty, a visitor, that it is with difficulty any trap can be so disguised, or any bait made so alluring, as to lead to its capture.  The usual expedient in Ceylon is to place some of its favourite food at the extremity of a trench, so narrow as to prevent the porcupine turning, whilst the direction of his quills effectually bars his retreat backwards.  On a newly planted coconut tope, at Hang-welle, within a few miles of Colombo, I have heard of as many as twenty-seven being thus captured in a single night; but such success is rare.  The more ordinary expedient is to smoke them out by burning straw at the apertures of their burrows.  At Ootacamund, on the continent of the Dekkan, spring-guns have been used with great success by the Superintendent of the Horticultural Gardens; placing them so as to sweep the runs of the porcupines.  The flesh is esteemed a delicacy in Ceylon, and in consistency, colour, and flavour it very much resembles young pork.

[Footnote 1:  Hystrix leucurus, Sykes.]

V. EDENTATA. Pengolin.—­Of the Edentata the only example in Ceylon is the scaly ant-eater, called by the Singhalese, Caballaya, but usually known by its Malay name of Pengolin[1], a word indicative of its faculty, when alarmed, of “rolling itself up” into a compact ball, by bending its head towards its stomach, arching its back into a circle, and securing all by a powerful fold of its mail-covered tail.  The feet of the pengolin are armed with powerful claws, which in walking they double in, like the ant-eater of Brazil.  These they use in extracting their favourite food from ant-hills and decaying wood.  When at liberty, they burrow in the dry ground to a depth of seven or eight feet, where they reside in pairs, and produce annually one or two young.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Manis pentadactyla, Linn.]

[Footnote 2:  I am assured that there is a hedge-hog in Ceylon; but as I have never seen it, I cannot tell whether it belongs to either of the two species known in India (Erinaceus mentalis and E. collaris)—­nor can I vouch for its existence there at all.  But the fact was told to me, in connexion with the statement, that its favourite dwelling is in the same burrow with the pengolin.  The popular belief in this is attested by a Singhalese proverb, in relation to an intrusive personage; the import of which is that he is like “a hedge-hog in the den of a pengolin.”]