PESTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 159 



rats that were troubling the cane-fields. In quick 

 time the rats were exterminated, and then the 

 mongooses ambitiously looked about for more food 

 and more worlds to conquer. With cheerful 

 impartiality they devoured the snakes and lizards, 

 wild birds and poultry, cleaned out every living 

 thing that they could catch and kill, and then began 

 on the sugar-cane. The last count in this indict- 

 ment seems hard to believe, but it is a fact that when 

 hard-pressed by hunger the mongoose freely 

 devours fruit and vegetable food. 



Up to this date, the mongoose has invaded and 

 become a destructive pest in Barbadoes, Jamaica, 

 Cuba, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Nevis, Fiji 

 and all the larger islands of the Hawaiian group. 

 Everywhere its progress is the same devouring 

 rats, snakes, wild birds, small mammals, poultry, 

 fruit and vegetables. 



The fierce temper, matchless courage and all- 

 embracing appetite of the mongoose would render 

 its transplantation into any of the warmer portions 

 of America a terrible calamity. In the southern 

 states, from the Carolinas to California, and up the 

 Pacific coast as far as Seattle, it could live, thrive 

 and multiply ; and the slaughter that it would inflict 

 upon our wild life, especially quail, grouse and wild 

 turkeys, would drive the American people crazy. 



The importation of the mongoose into the United 

 States is forbidden by a federal law; but for all 

 that, Lascars from eastern ships frequently 



