THE SNAKE AND ITS NATURAL FOES. 385 



present had reduced it to this dying condition. Parker Gillmore* refers 

 to a cat in South Africa which he saw kill a snake which had entered 

 the drawing-room, having commenced operations by seizing it by the 

 head. 



Family. — Viverridse.- — Among the Carnivora probably no creatures 

 commit such wholesale slaughter of snakes as the mungoose (Herpestes), 

 but whether all of the many species exhibit the same partiality towards 

 this flesh I am not able to say. I was lately informed on good author- 

 ity of a company of mungoose which was busily engaged in hunting on 

 a railway cutting which gave exceptional scope and opportunity for ob- 

 servation. They instituted a systematic search in the grass, and ap- 

 parently for snakes. One at any rate was flushed, and promptly cap- 

 tured, and the little gang having collected tore it in pieces, and ate 

 the fragments, and immediately dispersed to renew their hunting. 

 The general behaviour of the party as described to me suggested a 

 family being instructed by their parents. Blanfordf describes these 

 little animals as " deadly enemies to snakes ", and almost every 

 writer on Natural History gives ample evidence of the ravages they 

 commit in the snake world. 



Family. — Canidse. — Dogs at any rate in a domesticated state are oc- 

 casionally known to develop ophidioclastic tendencies, and, this being so, 

 it is mure than likely that their feral allies exhibit similar habits, though 

 I am not aware of any authentic instance. I have in my note- book a 

 cutting from a paper 1 took some time ago, omitting at the time to 

 note the paper and its date, but it was about ten years since. This 

 gives a very interesting account of a clog which was in the habit of 

 killing snakes, and with it was a reproduction from a photograph of 

 the dog standing over one of his dead victims. It was the property 

 of a Mr. J. Smith, of Nhill, Victoria, Australia, and the account says it 

 had killed about 35 snakes in one summer. It eventually succumbed 

 to bites inflicted by a poisonous species with which it engaged in 

 mortal combat. BrydenJ mentions a dog taking up a green tree snake 

 in his mouth and running off with it. Colonel Yule§ records a bull-dog 

 in the possession of a Staff-Sergeant at Delhi that used to catch cobras. 



* Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. Jouru., Vol. VII , p. 405. 



f Fauna, Brit. India Mammalia, p. 121 . 



% " Gim and Camera in South .Africa," p. 80. 



$ il Hoi s<>u Jobson," p. 173. 



