ng 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.

[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