L84 



VEUT K I". RATA. 



■ 



THE EGYPTIAN ICHNEUMON. 



first with milk, and afterward with baked meat mixed with rice. It soon became even tamer 

 than a cat, for it came when called, and followed me, although at liberty, in the country. One 

 day I brought this animal a small water-serpent alive, being desirous to know how far his instinct 

 would carry him against a being with which he w r as as yet totally unacquainted. His first 

 emotion seemed to be astonishment mixed with anger, for his hair became erect; but in an 



e»-ifs 



:■ 



I [J, • 



I w. ■ 



ftA' 



THE CVX1CT1S. 



instant he dipped behind the reptile, and with remarkable swiftness and agility leaped upon its 

 head, seized it. and crushed it between his teeth. This essay, and the new food, seemed to have 

 awakened in him an innate and destructive voracity, which till then had, given way to tli<' 

 gentleness he had acquired from education. I had about my house several curious kinds of fowls, , 



