318 LEAVES FROM THE 



element, in which they are stronger and more at 

 liberty. 



The portrait of the ichneumon, ' que les Egyptiens 

 nomment Rat de Pharaon/ is given in the Portraits 

 d'Animaux* with the following morsel of poesy : — 



Voy le portrait du Rat de Pharaon, 

 Qui cliasse aux rats, comme fait la Belette : 

 Au demeurant fort cauteleuse beste. 

 Qui autrement est nommee Ichneumon. 



But not a word is said about the romance of its leap- 

 ing into the gaping mouths of crocodiles, gliding into 

 their bellies, and eating its way out of the entrails of the 

 reptiles, which the ancient authors and many of the 

 moderns loved to dwell upon, but which Sonnini treats 

 with the contempt that it deserves. The natural food of 

 the ichneumons consists of rats, birds, eggs, and reptiles ; 

 and if some of them have been seen springing on little 

 crocodiles with fury when presented to them, the act was 

 the effect of their general appetite for such game gene- 

 rally, and not of a particular antipathy. It would, as 

 Sonnini observes, be at least equally reasonable to say 

 that their mission on earth was to prevent the too great 

 propagation of chickens, to which they are far more 

 hostile than to crocodiles. In his time, and in more 

 than half of northern Egjrpt, that is to say, in that part 

 comprised between the Mediterranean Sea and the city 

 of Siout, ichneumons were very common, although there 

 were no crocodiles there; while they were more rare in 

 Upper Egypt, where the crocodiles were more numerous. 

 The great scourge of the crocodiles is a tortoise called 

 thirse by the Arabians — one of the Potamians probably 

 — which, when the little crocodiles just hatched repair to 

 the river, springs upon them and devours them. Persons 

 of undoubted veracity at Thebai's told Sonnini that out 

 of fifty young crocodiles, the produce of one hatching, 



* 1657. 



