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: 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_.]