12The coffee-rat or Golunda ellioti, an insular variety of the Mus hirsutus identified by Sir Walter Elliott in Southern India. Sir Walter Elliot (b. 1803 in Edinburgh; d. 1887) joined the Indian Civil Service in Madras in 1821 and worked in that city until 1860. In addition to zoology and botany (Flora andhirica, 1859), his interests spanned Orien-tal studies, archaeology, and numismatics (Coins of Southern India, 1884). A scholar of Sanskrit legal literature, in 1844 he began publication of The Crescent, reputedly the first Hindu periodical in Madras [Editor].