the "Flying Squirrel,"[1] from its being assisted, in its prodigious
leaps from tree to tree, by a 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.
[Footnote 1: Pteromys oral., _Tickel_. P. petaurista, _Pallas_.]
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 by far the most beautiful of the family.
_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 servants, in consideration of its
services in destroying vermin. I had one day an opportunity of
surprising a snake that 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, appeared stunned by its own capture, and
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. In parts of the central province, at Oovah and
Bintenne, the house-rat is eaten as a common article of food. The
Singhalese believe it and the mouse to be liable to hydrophobia.
[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, _Merr_.]
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 continue to infest them, at
intervals, 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 of the slender branches as would not sustain its weight, and
feeds on them when fallen 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 feeding, in the season, on the
ripe seeds of the nilloo. 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 their incursions, where they fry the rats in coco-nut
oil, or convert them into curry.
[Footnote 1: Golunda Ellioti, _Gray_.]
[Illustration: COFFEE RAT.]
_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.
[Footnote 1: Mus bandicota, _Beckst._ The English term bandicoot is a
corruption of the Telinga name _pandikoku_, literally _pig-rat_.]
Its nests, when rifled, are frequently found to contain considerable
quantities of rice, stored up against the dry season.
[Illustration: BANDICOOT.]
_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 coconut 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 in Ceylon 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 backwards. On a newly planted coconut 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. At Ootacamund, on the continent of the
Dekkan, spring-guns have been used with great success by the
Superintendent of the Horticultural Gardens; placing them so as to sweep
the runs of the porcupines. The flesh is esteemed a delicacy in Ceylon,
and in consistency, colour, and flavour it very much resembles young
pork.
[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, when alarmed, 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 in walking they
double in, like the ant-eater of Brazil. These they use in extracting
their favourite food 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.[2]
[Footnote 1: Manis pentadactyla, _Linn._]
[Footnote 2: I am assured that there is a hedge-hog in Ceylon; but as I
have never seen it, I cannot tell whether it belongs to either of the
two species known in India (_Erinaceus mentalis_ and _E. collaris_)--nor
can I vouch for its existence there at all. But the fact was told to me,
in connexion with the statement, that its favourite dwelling is in the
same burrow with the pengolin. The popular belief in this is attested by
a Singhalese proverb, in relation to an intrusive personage; the import
of which is that he is like "_a hedge-hog in the den of a pengolin_."]
Of two specimens which I kept alive at different times, one, about two
feet in length, from the vicinity of Kandy, 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 me in Colombo. I
had always understood that the pengolin was unable to climb trees; but
the one last mentioned frequently ascended a tree in my garden, in
search of ants; and this it effected by means of its hooked feet, aided
by an oblique grasp of the tail. The ants it seized by extending its
round and glutinous tongue along their tracks; and in the stomach of one
which was opened after death, I found a quantity of small stones and
gravel, which had been taken to facilitate digestion. In both specimens
in my possession the scales of the back were a cream-coloured white,
with a tinge of red in that which came from Chilaw, probably acquired by
the insinuation of the Cabook dust which abounds along the western coast
of the island.
[Illustration: THE PENGOLIN.]
[Illustration: SKELETON OF PENGOLIN.]
Of the habits of the pengolin I found that very little was known by the
natives, who regard it with aversion, one name given to it being the
"Negombo Devil." Those kept by me were, generally speaking, quiet during
the day, and grew restless and active as evening and night approached.
Both had been taken near rocks, in the hollows of which they had their
dwelling, but owing to their slow power of motion, they were unable to
reach their hiding place when overtaken. When frightened, they rolled
themselves instantly into a rounded ball; and such was the powerful
force of muscle, that the strength of a man was insufficient to uncoil
it. In reconnoitring they made important use of the tail, resting upon
it and their hind legs, and holding themselves nearly erect, to command
a view of their object. The strength of this powerful limb will be
perceived from the accompanying drawing of the skeleton of the Manis; in
which it will be seen that the tail is equal in length to all the rest
of the body, whilst the vertebræ which compose it are stronger by far
than those of the back.
From the size and position of the bones of the leg, the pengolin is
endued with prodigious power; and its faculty of exerting this
vertically, was displayed in overturning heavy cases, by insinuating
itself under them, between the supports, by which it is customary in
Ceylon to raise trunks a few inches above the floor, in order to prevent
the attacks of white ants.
VI. RUMINANTIA. _The Gaur_.--Besides the deer, and some varieties of the
humped ox, that have been introduced from the opposite continent of
India, Ceylon has probably but one other indigenous bovine _ruminant_,
the buffalo.[1] There is a tradition that the gaur, found in the
extremity of the Indian peninsula, was at one period a native of the
Kandyan Mountains; but as Knox speaks of one which in his time "was kept
among the king's creatures" at Kandy[2], and his account of it tallies
with that of the _Bos Gaurus_ of Hindustan, it would appear even then to
have been a rarity. A place between Neuera-ellia and Adam's Peak bears
the name of "Gowra-ellia," and it is not impossible that the animal may
yet be discovered in some of the imperfectly explored regions of the
island.[3] I have heard of an instance in which a very old Kandyan,
residing in the mountains near the Horton Plains, asserted that when
young he had seen what he believed to have been a gaur, and he described
it as between an elk and a buffalo in size, dark brown in colour, and
very scantily provided with hair.
[Footnote 1: Bubalus buffelus, _Gray_.]
[Footnote 2: KNOX, _Historical Relation of Ceylon, &c._, A.D. 1681. Book
i. c. 6.]
[Footnote 3: KELAART, _Fauna Zeylan_., p. 87.]
_Oxen_.--Oxen are used by the peasantry both in ploughing and in
tempering the mud in the wet paddi fields before sowing the rice; and
when the harvest is reaped they "tread out the corn," after the
immemorial custom of the East. The wealth of the native chiefs and
landed proprietors frequently consists in their herds of bullocks, which
they hire out to their dependents during the seasons for agricultural
labour; and as they already supply them with land to be tilled, and lend
the seed which is to crop it, the further contribution of this portion
of the labour serves to render the dependence of the peasantry on the
chiefs and headmen complete.
The cows are often worked as well as the oxen; and as the calves are
always permitted to suck them, milk is an article which the traveller
can rarely hope to procure in a Kandyan village. From their constant
exposure at all seasons, the cattle in Ceylon, both those employed in
agriculture and those on the roads, are subject to devastating murrains,
that sweep them away by thousands. So frequent is the recurrence of
these calamities, and so extended their ravages, that they exercise a
serious influence upon the commercial interests of the colony, by
reducing the facilities of agriculture, and augmenting the cost of
carriage during the most critical periods of the coffee harvest.
A similar disorder, probably peripneumonia, frequently carries off the
cattle in Assam and other hill countries on the continent of India; and
there, as in Ceylon, the inflammatory symptoms in the lungs and throat,
and the internal derangement and external eruptive appearances, seem to
indicate that the disease is a feverish influenza, attributable to
neglect and exposure in a moist and variable climate; and that its
prevention might be hoped for, and the cattle preserved, by the simple
expedient of more humane and considerate treatment, especially by
affording them cover at night.
During my residence in Ceylon an incident occurred at Neuera-ellia,
which invested one of these pretty animals with an heroic interest. A
little cow, belonging to an English gentleman, was housed, together with
her calf, near the dwelling of her owner, and being aroused during the
night by her furious bellowing, the servants, on hastening to the stall,
found her goring a leopard, which had stolen in to attack the calf. She
had got it into a corner, and whilst lowing incessantly to call for
help, she continued to pound it with her horns. The wild animal,
apparently stupified by her unexpected violence, was detained by her
till despatched by a bullet.
The number of bullock-carts encountered between Colombo and Kandy, laden
with coffee from the interior, or carrying up rice and stores for the
supply of the plantations in the hill-country, is quite surprising. The
oxen thus employed on this single road, about seventy miles long, are
estimated at upwards of twenty thousand. The bandy to which they are
yoked is a barbarous two-wheeled waggon, with a covering of plaited
coco-nut leaves, in which a pair of strong bullocks will draw from five
to ten hundred weight, according to the nature of the country; and with
this load on a level they will perform a journey of twenty miles a day.
A few of the large humped cattle of India are annually imported for
draught; but the vast majority of those in use are small and
dark-coloured, with a graceful head and neck, and elevated hump, a deep
silky dewlap, and limbs as slender as a deer. They appear to have
neither the strength nor weight requisite for this service; and yet the
entire coffee crop of Ceylon, amounting annually to upwards of half a
million hundred weight, is year after year brought down from the
mountains to the coast by these indefatigable little creatures, which,
on returning, carry up proportionally heavy loads, of rice and
implements for the estates.[1] There are two varieties of the native
bullock; one a somewhat coarser animal, of a deep red colour; the other,
the high-bred black one I have just described. So rare was a white one
of this species, under the native kings, that the Kandyans were
compelled to set them apart for the royal herd.[2]
[Footnote 1: A pair of these little bullocks carry up about twenty
bushels of rice to the hills, and bring down from fifty to sixty bushels
of coffee to Colombo.]
[Footnote 2: WOLF says that, in the year 1763, he saw in Ceylon two
white oxen, each of which measured upwards of eight feet high. They were
sent as a present from the King of Atchin.--_Life and Adventures_, p.
172.]
Although bullocks may be said to be the only animals of draught and
burden in Ceylon (horses being rarely used except in spring carriages),
no attempt has been made to improve the breed, or even to better the
condition and treatment of those in use. Their food is indifferent,
pasture in all parts of the island being rare, and cattle are seldom
housed under any vicissitudes of weather.
The labour for which they are best adapted, and in which, before the
opening of roads, these cattle were formerly employed, is in traversing
the jungle paths of the interior, carrying light loads as pack-oxen in
what is called a "_tavalam_"--a term which, substituting bullocks for
camels, is equivalent to a "caravan."[1] The class of persons engaged in
this traffic in Ceylon resemble in their occupations the "Banjarees" of
Hindustan, who bring down to the coast corn, cotton, and oil, and take
back to the interior cloths and iron and copper utensils. In the
unopened parts of the island, and especially in the eastern provinces,
this primitive practice still continues. When travelling in these
districts I have often encountered long files of pack-bullocks toiling
along the mountain paths, their bells tinkling musically as they moved;
or halting during the noonday heat beside some stream in the forests,
their burdens piled in heaps near the drivers, who had lighted their
cooking fires, whilst the bullocks were permitted to bathe and browse.
[Footnote 1: Attempts have been made to domesticate the camel in Ceylon;
but, I am told, they died of ulcers in the feet, attributed to the too
great moisture of the roads at certain seasons. This explanation seems
insufficient if taken in connection with the fact of the camel living in
perfect health in climates equally, if not more, exposed to rain. I
apprehend that sufficient justice has not been done to the experiment.]
The persons engaged in this wandering trade are chiefly Moors, and the
business carried on by them consists in bringing up salt from the
government depots on the coast to be bartered with the Kandyans in the
hills for "native coffee," which is grown in small quantities round
every house, but without systematic cultivation. This they carry down to
the maritime towns, and the proceeds are invested in cotton cloths and
brass utensils, dried fish, and other commodities, with which the
_tavalams_ supply the secluded villages of the interior.
_The Buffalo_.--Buffaloes abound in all parts of Ceylon, but they are
only to be seen in their native wildness in the vast solitudes of the
northern and eastern provinces, where rivers, lagoons, and dilapidated
tanks abound. In these they delight to immerse themselves, till only
their heads appear above the surface; or, enveloped in mud to protect
themselves from the assaults of insects, they luxuriate in the long
sedges by the water margins. When the buffalo is browsing, a crow will
frequently be seen stationed on its back, engaged in freeing it from the
ticks and other pests which attach themselves to its leathery hide, the
smooth brown surface of which, unprotected by hair, shines with an
unpleasant polish in the sunlight. When in motion a buffalo throws back
its clumsy head till the huge horns rest on its shoulders, and the nose
is presented in a line with the eyes.
The temper of the wild buffalo is morose and uncertain, and such is its
strength and courage that in the Hindu epic of the Ramayana its
onslaught is compared to that of the tiger.[1] It is never quite safe to
approach them, if disturbed in their pasture or alarmed from their
repose in the shallow lakes. On such occasions they hurry into line,
draw up in defensive array, with a few of the oldest bulls in advance;
and, wheeling in circles, their horns clashing with a loud sound as they
clank them together in their rapid evolutions, they prepare for attack;
but generally, after a menacing display the herd betake themselves to
flight; then forming again at a safer distance, they halt as before,
elevating their nostrils, and throwing back their heads to take a
defiant survey of the intruders. The true sportsman rarely molests them,
so huge a creature affording no worthy mark for his skill, and their
wanton slaughter adds nothing to the supply of food for their assailant.
[Footnote 1: CAREY and MARSHMAN'S Transl. vol. i. p. 430, 447.]
In the Hambangtotte country, where the Singhalese domesticate buffaloes,
and use them to assist in the labour of the rice lands, the villagers
are much annoyed by the wild ones, that mingle with the tame when sent
out to the woods to pasture; and it constantly happens that a savage
stranger, placing himself at the head of the tame herd, resists the
attempts of the owners to drive them homewards at sunset. In the
districts of Putlam and the Seven Corles, buffaloes are generally used
for draught; and in carrying heavy loads of salt from the coast towards
the interior, they drag a cart over roads which would defy the weaker
strength of bullocks.
In one place between Batticaloa and Trincomalie I found the natives
making an ingenious use of them when engaged in shooting water-fowl in
the vast salt marshes and muddy lakes. Being an object to which the
birds are accustomed, the Singhalese train the buffalo to the sport,
and, concealed behind, the animal browsing listlessly along, they guide
it by ropes attached to its horns, and thus creep undiscovered within
shot of the flock. The same practice prevails, I believe, in some of the
northern parts of India, where they are similarly trained to assist the
sportsman in approaching deer. One of these "sporting buffaloes" sells
for a considerable sum.
In the thick forests which cover the Passdun Corle, to the east, and
south of Caltura, the natives use the sporting buffalo in another way,
to assist in hunting deer and wild hogs. A bell is attached to its neck,
and a box or basket with one side open is securely strapped on its back.
This at nightfall is lighted by flambeaux of wax, and the buffalo
bearing it, is driven slowly into the jungle. The huntsmen, with their
fowling pieces, keep close under the darkened side, and as it moves
slowly onwards, the wild animals, startled by the sound, and bewildered
by the light, steal cautiously towards it in stupified fascination. Even
the snakes, I am assured, will be attracted by this extraordinary
object; and the leopard too falls a victim to curiosity.
There is a peculiarity in the formation of the buffalo's foot, which,
though it must have attracted attention, I have never seen mentioned by
naturalists. It is equivalent to the arrangement which distinguishes the
foot of the reindeer from that of the stag and the antelope. In the
latter, the hoofs, being constructed for lightness and flight, are
compact and vertical; but, in the reindeer, the joints of the tarsal
bones admit of lateral expansion, and the front hoofs curve upwards,
while the two secondary ones behind (which are but slightly developed in
the fallow deer and others of the same family) are prolonged vertically
till, in certain positions, they are capable of being applied to the
ground, thus adding to the circumference and sustaining power of the
foot. It has been usually suggested as the probable design of this
structure, that it is to enable the reindeer to shovel away the snow in
order to reach the lichens beneath it; but I apprehend that another use
of it has been overlooked, that of facilitating its movements in search
of food by increasing the difficulty of its sinking in the snow.
A formation precisely analogous in the buffalo seems to point to a
corresponding design. The ox, whose life is spent on firm ground, has
the bones of the foot so constructed as to afford the most solid support
to an animal of its great weight; but in the buffalo, which delights in
the morasses on the margins of pools and rivers, the construction of the
foot resembles that of the reindeer. The tarsi in front extend almost
horizontally from the upright bones of the leg, and spread apart widely
on touching the ground; the hoofs are flattened and broad, with the
extremities turned upwards; and the false hoofs behind descend till they
make a clattering sound as the animal walks. In traversing the marshes,
this combination of abnormal incidents serves to give extraordinary
breadth to the foot, and not only prevents the buffalo from sinking
inconveniently in soft ground[1], but at the same time presents no
obstacle to the withdrawal of its foot from the mud.
[Footnote 1: PROFESSOR OWEN has noticed a similar fact regarding the
rudiments of the second and fifth digits in the instance of the elk and
bison, which have them largely expanded where they inhabit swampy
ground; whilst they are nearly obliterated in the camel and dromedary,
that traverse arid deserts.--OWEN _on Limbs_, p. 34; see also BELL _on
the Hand_, ch. iii.]
The buffalo, like the elk, is sometimes found in Ceylon as an albino,
with purely white hair and a pink iris.