CARNIVORA 205 



fruit and one stomach contained a large centipede. 8 As summed up by 

 Nelson, their food consists of almost anything, especially insects, ro- 

 dents and fruit, and they rob chicken roosts. 9 



The name civet cat is often applied to the bassarisk, which is unfor- 

 tunate, as that term is also applied to the spotted skunks, and should be 

 confined to the true civet cats of Asia and Africa. This misuse of the 

 name by trappers and fur traders makes it impossible to ascertain how 

 many bassarisk skins may be included in reports and estimates of civet 

 cat fur production. Innis definitely estimates that 40,000 bassarisk skins 

 were marketed from America in 



FAMILY VIVERRIDAE MONGOOSES AND CIVET CATS 



The mongooses, sometimes spelled "mungooses" (Herpestes), eat 

 almost any small animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate, and some- 

 times fruit and vegetables, and are listed among the enemies of poison- 

 ous reptiles. 11 Of nine stomachs, one contained termites and two were 

 filled with driver ants. 12 In Africa they are known to eat snails. 13 They 

 are rated as excellent mousers and ratters, and for that reason were 

 introduced into Jamaica, Cuba, Porto Rico, Barbados, Santa Cruz and 

 the Hawaiian Islands. After reducing the rats so that they no longer 

 furnished them sufficient food, they naturally turned their attention 

 to other small animal life, and have done much damage by the destruc- 

 tion of young pigs and lambs, poultry, eggs, wild birds and small mam- 

 mals, almost or quite exterminating some species of birds. 14 A difference 

 of opinion concerning the economic status of mongooses in Barbados is 

 indicated by the fact that in 1917 a committee of the House of Assem- 

 blies recommended that their legal destruction be continued, while in 

 1911 a commission recommended that the law providing for their de- 

 struction be repealed, because of their value as rat catchers. 15 The re- 



8 Bailey, North Amer. Fauna, No. 25, pp. 182-184 1005. 



9 Seton, Lives of game animals, n, Part I, p. 581, 1929, citing Nelson, Wild 

 animals of North America, p. 587. 



10 Innis, The fur trade of Canada, table opp. p. 76, 1927. 



"Jennison, Natural history animals, pp. 82-83, 1927. Ingersoll, The life of ani- 

 mals, pp. 152, 154, 1907. 



12 Bequaert, The predacious enemies of ants, Bull. Amer. Museum Nat. Hist., 

 XLV, 328, 1922. 



13 Pilsbry and Bequaert, The aquatic mollusks of the Belgian Congo, Bull. Amer. 

 Museum Nat. Hist., LIU, 479, 1927. 



14 Morris, The mungoose on sugar plantations in the West Indies, 1883, reviewed 

 in Amer. Naturalist, xvn, 299, 1883. Earle, The mungoose in Jamaica, Forest and 

 Stream, xxxix, 69, 1892. Wetmore, Birds of Porto Rico, U. S. Dept. Agric. Bull. 

 No. 326, pp. 38, 67, 1916. Palmer, The danger of introducing noxious animals and 

 birds, Yearbook U. S. Dept. Agric. for 1898, pp. 87-100. 



"Ballou, Rats in the West Indies, Agricultural News, Barbados, xvm, 406-407, 

 1919; Journ. Mammalogy, I, 192-193, 1919. 



