s and
blossoms when fallen to the ground. "The twigs thus destroyed are
detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a knife." Sir Walter
Elliot writes of it: "The _gulandi_ lives entirely in the jungle,
choosing its habitation in a thick bush, among the thorny branches
of which, or on the ground, it constructs a nest of elastic stalks
and fibres of dry grass thickly interwoven. The nest is of a round
or oblong shape, from six to nine inches in diameter, within which
is a chamber about three or four inches in diameter, in which it rolls
itself up. Round and through the bush are sometimes observed small
beaten pathways along which the little animal seems habitually to
pass. Its motion is somewhat slow, and it does not appear to have
the same power of leaping or springing by which the rats in general
avoid danger. Its food seems to be vegetable, the only contents of
the stomach being the roots of the haryalee grass. Its habits are
solitary (except when the female is bringing up her young) and
diurnal, feeding in the mornings and evenings." Dr. Jerdon says:
"The Yanadees of Nellore catch this rat, surrounding the bush and
seizing it as it issues forth, which its comparatively slow actions
enable them to do easily. According to Sir Emerson Tennent 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 their incursions, where they fry the rats in cocoanut-oil
or convert them into curry." Both he and Dr. Kellaart mention the
migratory habits of this animal on the occurrence of a scarcity of
food. Kellaart says that in one day on such visits more than a
thousand have been killed on one estate alone.

NO. 379. GOLUNDA MELTADA.
_The Soft-furred Bush Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 200_).

NATIVE NAMES.--_Mettade_, of Wuddurs; _Metta-yelka_, Telegu of
Yanadees; _Kera ilei_, Canarese.

HABITAT.--Southern India and Ceylon.

DESCRIPTION.--Fur very soft; above deep yellowish, olive brown or
reddish-brown, with a mixture of fawn; under fur lead colour; chin
and under parts whitish; head short; muzzle sharp; ears long and
hairy; tail shorter than body, scaly, but scales covered with short
black adpressed hairs; feet pale.

SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 to 5-1/2 inches; tail, 2-1/4 to 4-1/4
inches.

The specific name of this rat is an absurd corruption, such as is
not unfrequent in Dr. Gray's names, of the native _mettade_, which
means soft. Accordin