CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARXIVORA. 



185 



among which he had been brought up, and which, till then, he had suffered to go and come, 

 unmolested and unregarded; but a few days after, when he found himself alone, he strangled 

 them every one, ate a little, and, as it appeared, drank the blood of two." 



Sonnini, after stating that the ichneumon is rather tolerated than encouraged about the housi - 

 of the Egyptians, says : "Having some resemblance in their habits to weasels and polecats, they 

 feed upon rats, birds, and reptiles. They ramble about the habitations of men ; they even steal 

 into them, in order to surprise the poultry and devour their eggs. It is this natural fondness for 

 eggs which prompts them frequently to scratch up the sand with the intention of discovering 

 those which the crocodiles deposit there, and it is in this manner that they prevent, in reality, 

 the excessive propagation of these detestable animals. But it is absolutely impossible to abstain 

 from laughing, and not without reason, when we read of their leaping into the extended mouth 

 of the crocodiles, of their sliding down into their belly, and not returning till they have eaten 

 through their entrails. If some mangoustes have been seen springing with fury on little crocodiles 

 presented to them, it was the effect of their appetite for every species of reptile, and not at all 

 that of a particular hatred, or of a law of nature, in virtue of which they would have been 

 specially commissioned to check the multiplication of those amphibious animals, as many people 

 have imagined." 



The mode in which the ichneumon seizes a serpent is thus accurately described by Lucan, 



in his " Pharsalia :" 



" Thus oft the ichneumon, on the banks of Nile, 

 Invades the deadly aspic by a wile: 

 While artfully his slender tail is play'd, 

 The serpent darts upon the dancing shade — 

 Then, turning on the foe with swift surprise, 

 Full on the throat the nimble traitor flies,. 

 And in his grasp the panting serpent dies." 



THE MOONGDS. 



The other species of this genus are as follows : 



"VViddrington's Ichneumon, M. Widdringtmii, the only European species, and found in the 

 , south of Spain ; the Cape Ichneumon, M. Cafer, of South Africa; M. Mutfigella, cf Abyssinnia ; 

 Dr. Smith's Ichneumon, M. Smith!!, of the Cape of Good Hope ; the Br'own-tipped Ichneu^ 

 mon, M. ajriculata, of the same region; the Garangan, M. Javan!ca, of Java; the Maxgocste 

 Nkms, or Moongus, M. c/risea, of India and Nepaul ; the Xyula, M. nyula, of the same coun- 

 tries; the Brown- Ichneumon, M. paludosa, of the Cape of Good Hope; the Malacca Ichneu- 



Vol. L— 24 



