194 



THE VIVERRINES. 



that steals their fowls, clucks, and pigeons, and 

 plunders the nests with their chickens and 

 brood-hens. The Pharaoh's Rats are affec- 

 tionate parents. The family, consisting of 

 father, mother, and young ones, hunt during 

 the summer in company, and while creeping 

 amidst the grass keep so well together that 

 one might fancy a large thick serpent was 

 crawling about. The Egyptian ichneumon is 

 often enough tamed, to serve as a means of 

 ridding houses of all sorts of vermin. But it 



soon makes itself disagreeable by its smell, by 

 the noise it makes, and by the ravages it com- 

 mits among the poultry in spite of all taming. 

 The Gray Ichneumon, or Mongoose {Her- 

 pcstes griseus), fig. 96, which occurs in India, 

 measures only about 18 or 20 inches in length 

 and has a silver-gray fur. Of a much more 

 peaceable disposition than the Egyptian ich- 

 neumon, it can easily be rendered attached 

 and confiding. It does not make much noise, 

 keeps itself very clean, and renders the Hindus, 



Fig. 96. — The Mongoose or Gray Ichneumon [Hcrpcsta }^riscus). 



who hold it in high esteem, important service 

 through its untiring pursuit not only of rats 

 and mice, but still more of serpents, which are 

 so common in India. As regards the poisons 

 of serpents it is gifted with the same insus- 

 ceptibility to their action as the hedgehog, 

 and it attacks with the most praiseworthy fury 

 even the largest hoo;led snake. The battles 

 which the mongoose wages against these 

 terrible reptiles are as dramatic as those be- 

 tween the hedgehog and the viper, and the 

 mongoose almost always comes out the victor. 

 For the most part it manages to seize the 

 serpent by the neck, and then to crush its 

 head with a single powerful bite, after which 

 it at once proceeds to devour it. Even when 

 it has suffered a bite so that blood is drawn, 

 and it is overmastered for an instant by the 

 poison, the courageous animal does not allow 

 itself to be deterred, and renews its attacks 



after a short rest, which it employs in eating 

 some green herbs. The natives maintain 

 that the mongoose knows antidotes among 

 the native plants, but this is incorrect. On 

 the contrary, it swallows the first green thing 

 it can find, manifestly with the intention of 

 producing vomiting, as dogs do. In the year 

 1 87 1 an attempt was made to introduce the 

 mongoose into the island of St. Lucia, one of 

 the Lesser Antilles, which is infested by the 

 terrible fer-de-lance, or lance-headed viper. 

 A young mongoose killed one of these ser- 

 pents after an obstinate struggle, in which its 

 blood was drawn without its betraying any 

 sign of being injuriously affected thereby. 

 But it appears that the efforts to propagate 

 this useful animal in the Antilles have not 

 been successful. 



In Jamaica great services have been rendered 

 to the sugar-planters by the mongoose, which has 



