Note 123 — V. HERE FOLLOWETH CONCERNING INDIA THE GREATER.

The bandicoot; Mus Malabaricus, or Mus giganticus. The name is said by Sir E. Tennent (Nat. Hist. of Ceylon, p. 44) to be from the Teloogoo Pandi-koku, “Pig-rat.” “This rat is found in many places on the coast of Coromandel, in Mysore, and in several parts of Bengal between Calcutta and Hurdwar. It is a most mischievous animal, burrows to a great depth, and will pass under the foundations of granaries and store-houses if not carefully laid.” (General Hardwicke in Linnæan Trans., vii., quoted in Pen. Cyc., article Muridæ.) The animal figured by Hardwicke was a female; its total length was 26¼ inches, of which the tail was 13 inches; and the weight was 2 pounds 11½ ounces. This is not quite so big as a fox, though the foxes in India are very small. As an exaggeration, it is far from a parallel to that of Herodotus, who speaks (bk. iii.) of ants in India as big as foxes. A story which reminds one of the question of a young Scotch lady just arrived in the Hoogly, when she saw an elephant for the first time, “Wull yon be what’s called a musqueetae?”