"Pharoe's Mouse." 



between mungooses aad cobras, and stories of 

 how, when struck by the snakes, the animals run 

 off into the jungle, and eat sorne plant or ro >t 

 which acts immediately as an antidote to the 

 poison, and enables them to return and renew the 

 fight none the worse for their wounds. And 

 many long and learned disquisitions have been 

 written on the same subject, and different plants 

 named as affording the antidote. Yet all these 

 stories are without foan lalijn, the truth being 

 that the mungoose is victorious owing to his won- 

 derful agility and watchfulness, or, as Bjlon has 

 it, to the fact that he is (C fort cauteleuse beste " ; 

 and if he is unfortunate enough to be bitten he 

 dies as certainly and as quickly as any other 

 mammal. 



And in this the ancient writers were far nearer 

 to the truth than many of the moderns, f >r they 

 ascribed the victory of the ichneumon over the 

 " Aspis" to his cunning. The story as related by 

 Aristotle, and repeated by Pliny, runs as follows 

 in the words of the learned Philemon Holland: 

 " There is mortall war between the Aspides 

 and the Ichneumones, or Rats of India. A beast 

 this is well knowne to the Aspis, in this regard 

 especially, that it is bred likewise in the same 

 -/Egypt. The manner of this Ichneumon is, to 

 wallow oft times within the mud, and then to dry 

 it selfe against the Sun : and when he hath thus 

 armed himself as it were with many coats hardened 

 in this manner, he goeth forth to combat with the 



