One of the largest, belonging to a closely allied subgenus, is known as the “Flying Squirrel,"[1] from its being assisted in its prodigious leaps from tree to tree, by the 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 is by far the most beautiful of the family.

[Footnote 1:  Pteromys oral., Tickel.  P. petaurista, Pallas.]

Rats.—­Among the multifarious inhabitants to which the forest affords at once a home and provender is the tree rat[1], 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[2], whose domestication is encouraged by the native servants, in consideration of its services in destroying vermin.  I had one day an opportunity of surprising a snake which had just seized on a rat of this description, and of covering it suddenly with a glass shade, before it had time to swallow its prey.  The serpent, which appeared stunned by its own capture, allowed the rat to escape from its jaws, which cowered at one side of the glass in the most pitiable state of trembling terror.  The two were left alone for some moments, and on my return to them the snake was as before in the same attitude of sullen stupor.  On setting them at liberty, the rat bounded towards the nearest fence; but quick as lightning it was followed by its pursuer, which seized it before it could gain the hedge, through which I saw the snake glide with its victim in its jaws.

[Footnote 1:  There are two species of the tree rat in Ceylon:  M. rufescens, Gray; (M. flavescens; Elliot;) and Mus nemoralis, Blyth.]

[Footnote 2:  Coryphodon Blumenbachii.]

Another indigenous variety of the rat is that which made its appearance for the first time in the coffee plantations on the Kandyan hills in the year 1847, and in such swarms does it infest them, that as many as a thousand have been killed in a single day on one estate.  In order to reach the buds and blossoms of the coffee, it cuts such slender branches, as would not sustain its weight, and feeds as they fall to the ground; and so delicate and sharp are its incisors, that the twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a knife.  The coffee-rat[1] is an insular variety of the Mus hirsutus of W. Elliot, found in Southern India.  They inhabit the forests, making their nests among the roots of the trees, and like the lemmings of Norway and Lapland, they migrate in vast numbers on the occurrence of a scarcity of their ordinary food.  The Malabar coolies are so fond of their flesh, that they evince a preference for those districts in which the coffee plantations are subject to these incursions, where they fry the rats in oil, or convert them into curry.