[Footnote 1:  Golunda Ellioti, Gray.]

Bandicoot.—­Another favourite article of food with the coolies is the pig-rat or Bandicoot[1], which attains on those hills the weight of two or three pounds, and grows to nearly the length of two feet.  As it feeds on grain and roots, its flesh is said to be delicate, and much resembling young pork.  Its nests, when rifled, are frequently found to contain considerable quantities of rice, stored up against the dry season.

[Footnote 1:  Mus bandicota, Beckst.  The English term bandicoot is a corruption of the Telinga name pandikoku, literally pig-rat.]

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 coco-nut 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 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.  On a newly planted coco-nut 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.  The flesh is esteemed a delicacy in Ceylon, and in consistency, colour, and flavour, it very much resembles that of a young pig.

[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 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 they double in in walking like the ant-eater of Brazil.  These they use in extracting their favourite food, the termites, 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.

[Footnote 1:  Manis pentadactyla, Linn.]

Of two specimens which I kept alive at different times, one from the vicinity of Kandy, about two feet in length, was a gentle and affectionate creature, which, after wandering over the house in search of ants, would attract attention to its wants by climbing up my knee, laying hold of my leg with its prehensile tail.  The other, more than double that length, was caught in the jungle near Chilaw, and brought to