HERPESTINJE. HERPESTES. 461 



Subfam. I. Herpestinse. 



The members of the subfamily HERPESTIN^E are rather small 

 terrestrial animals, which in the pursuit of their prey sometimes 

 climb trees. Active and courageous, they are constantly searching 

 for their food, which consists of various small quadrupeds, birds, 

 reptiles, insects, and eggs. The species are Indian, African, and 

 one European found in Spain. The genus is not indigenous to the 

 American Continent, and the single species recorded below was 

 imported into Porto Rico, Jamaica, and other islands of the West 

 Indies in order that the snakes, which were very numerous in some 

 of them, might be exterminated; for this little animal is a deadly foe 

 to all serpents, and does not hesitate to attack the most venomous, 

 even the deadly cobra, which it almost invariably destroys. It was 

 supposed, and in Oriental countries the belief still exists, that the 

 Ichneumon, or Mungoose, as it is generally called, when bitten by a 

 poisonous reptile like the cobra, immediately seeks for a root known 

 in India as manguswail, and eats it for an antidote. There is, how- 

 ever, no foundation for this story; and the fact is the Mungoose 

 escapes the strokes of the snake simply by its wonderful activity. 

 It may possibly be less susceptible to poison than many mammals; 

 but if a cobra happens to strike a Mungoose fairly it dies, as any 

 other creature would. This animal is a good ratter, and will clear 

 any place infested by rats and mice in a short time. In Jamaica it 

 has nearly exterminated the rats that inflicted much injury to the 

 sugar cane, and it also killed the snakes; and now for lack of these 

 creatures, it has turned its attention to chickens and native birds 

 and their eggs, and has become very much of a pest itself, threatening 

 the poultry of the inhabitants as well as their forest birds. The 

 importation into a country of most animals that are foreign to it, 

 while a possible benefit for a time, will almost certainly prove, if 

 they survive, a greater evil than the one they were expected to cure. 

 When angry, the Mungoose growls and raises the hair upon the body, 

 and especially that of the tail, and this erect, thick covering probably 

 helps to shield it from the attacks of serpents when fighting with 

 these reptiles. 



86. Herpestes. Ichneumons. 



Herpestes Illig., Prodr. Syst. Mamm., et Av., 1811, p. 135. Type 



Viverra ichneumon Linnaeus. 



Head slender, pointed; body lengthened, slender; ears short, 

 rounded; tail generally hairy, thick at base, rather long in most 



