IN CAPTIVITY IN LOWER BENGAL. 75 



will comfortably accommodate a pair of mungooses. Even a male and 

 female may fight unless they have been accustomed to live together 

 for some time. 



Treatment in sickness. 



Diarrhoea and dysentery are the principal diseases which affect 

 mungooses. No treatment could be adopted, as the animals refused 

 nourishment. 



Observations on the habits of Mungooses. 



Considering their size, they are very ferocious. When taken 

 young, they, however, become wonderfully tame and attached to 

 their owner. Adult animals seldom become tame enough, even for 

 exhibition in a menagerie : they either remain hidden away in the 

 straw or snap at the wire, uttering a querulous yelp, possibly expressive 

 of disgust at the approach of a man. They have been known to refuse 

 nourishment and to starve to death. 



Of the two species above mentioned, an adult common Indian 

 mungoose is, perhaps, the least tameable. When they once become 

 accustomed to the new surroundings, their sullenness gives place to 

 sociability, and they behave as if they were the most affectionate 

 of creatures. They growl like tigers when eating. Although not 

 addicted to climbing trees in their wild state, mungooses in captivity 

 have been observed to take pleasure in climbing dead branches of trees 

 inside the cages. 



(78) THE MALAYAN MUNGOOSE. 

 (HEEPESTES BEACHYUETTS— Gray.) 



Description. — General colour dark blackish brown, finely punctu- 

 lated with yellow ; head rather massive. 



Hab. — Borneo and Malacca. 



This animal has been recently acquired ; it does not appear to 

 carry its body low like the other Mungoose. 



(79) THE CEAB-EATING MUNGOOSE. 

 (HEEPESTES TJKVK—{Hodgs.) ) 



Description. — It looks more like a small badger than a mungoose. 

 Head and body about 18 to 21 inches, tail about 11. Fur Ions- 

 coarse and ragged ; under-fur soft and woolly. Colour of the body 

 varies much in different specimens, generally dusky iron-grey, some- 

 times, as in the case of one exhibited in the garden, whitish. A 

 white stripe runs along each side of the neck from the angle of the 

 mouth to the shoulder. Head much darker, almost black, and 

 speckled with white ; the lower limbs black. 



Hab. — It occurs in the South-Eastern Himalayas at low elevations 

 Assam, Arracan, Pegu, Tenasserim, and Southern China. A specimen 

 said to have been captured at Julpigori was obtained in 1880. 

 Length or life in captivity. 



The maximum period during which a crab-eating mungoose 

 lived in the garden has been only about eighteen months. 



