98 JUNGLE FOLK 



in order to tame a mungoose, the animal must be 

 captured while young. Babu R. P. Sanyal, in his 

 useful Handbook on the Management of Animals in 

 Captivity, writes : " Adult specimens seldom become 

 tame enough even for exhibition in a menagerie ; 

 they either remain hidden away in the straw or snap 

 at the wire, uttering a querulous yelp, possibly ex- 

 pressive of disgust, at the approach of man. They 

 have been known to refuse nourishment and to starve 

 to death." 



A mungoose (Herpestes ichneumon) allied to our 

 Indian species is common in Egypt, where it is known 

 as Pharaoh's rat or Pharoe's mouse. It is frequently 

 trained by the inhabitants to protect them from rats 

 and snakes. 



J ''iThe mungoose is a ratter without peer. Bennet, in 

 his ^ower Menagerie, states that " the individual now 

 in the Tower actually, on one occasion, killed no fewer 

 than a dozen full-grown rats, which were loosed to it 

 in a room i6 feet square, in less than a minute and a 

 half." The Egyptian species eats crocodiles' eggs, so 

 that Diodorus Siculus remarks that but for the 

 ichneumon there would have been no sailing on the 

 Nile. The Indian species seems to display no penchant 

 towards crocodiles' eggs. 



