EAST AFRICAN MAMMALS IN NATIONAL MUSEUM. 131 



The following very interesting account of a white-tailed mungoose 

 and a snake was told to Colonel Roosevelt by Mr. Leslie Tarlton in 

 Africa: 



The mongoose was an inmate of the house where he [Tarlton] dwelt with his brother 

 and was quite tame. One day they lirought in a rather small puff adder, less than 

 two feet long, put it on the floor, and showed it to the mongoose. Instantly the 

 latter sprang toward the snake, every hair in its body and tail on end, and halted 

 five feet away, while the snake lay in ciirves like the thong of a whip, its head tiurned 

 toward the mongoose. Both were motionless for a moment. Then suddenly the 

 mongoose seemed to lose all its excitement; its hair smoothed down; and it trotted 

 quietly up to the snake, seized it by the middle of the back — it always devoured its 

 food with savage voracity — and settled comfortably down to its meal. Like lightning 

 the snake's head whipped round. It drove its fangs deep into the snout or lip of the 

 mongoose, hung on for a moment, and then repeated the blow. The mongoose paid 

 not the least attention, but went on munching the snake's body, severed its backbone 

 at once, and then ate it all up, head, fangs, poison, and everything; and it never 

 Bhowed a sign of having received any damage in the encounter.^ 



ICHNEUMIA ALBICAUDA DIALEUCOS (Hollister). 



Plate 36, figs. 5, 6. 



1916. Mungos albicaudus dialeucos Hollister, Smithsonian Msc. Coll., vol. 66, 

 No. 1, p. 6. February 10. (Mount Lololokwi, British East Africa; type 

 in U. S. Nat. Mus.) 



Specimens. — Four, from the following localities: 



British East Africa: Merelle Water, Marsabit Road, 1 (Heller); 

 Mount Lololokwi, 3 (Heller). 



This color subspecies is related to IcTineumia albicauda iheana rather 

 than to the more northern /. a. leucura. It has the larger teeth of 

 the common British East African form, and is distinguished only by 

 its more silvery, less buffy, coloration. The four skins in the collec- 

 tion are very much alike and show no conspicuous variation in color; 

 all have clear white tails. 



Genus HELOGALE Gray. 



1862. ileZofiraZe Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1861, p. 308. April. (H. parvula.) 

 Several subspecies of the lesser mungoose occur in eastern Equa- 

 torial Africa. The four forms represented in our collection can be 

 referred to two distinct species, which in the present unre vised con- 

 dition of the genus may be called undulata Peters and Tiirtula Thomas. 

 A careful revision of the forms of the genus, based upon all the availa- 

 able material in different museums, is greatly needed. There is evi- 

 dently an unusual amount of geographic variation in these animals. 

 For measurements of specimens of Helogale see table, page 133. 



I African Game Trails, pp. 290, 291. 1910. 



