CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 
186 
among which lie 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 houses 
of the Egyptians, says : " Having some resemblance in their habits to Aveasels and polecats, the}' 
feed upon rats, birds, and reptiles. They ramble aljout the habitations of men ; they even ste;il 
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 ichaeumon, ou the banks of Nile, 
Invades the deadlj^ aspic hy 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 iu bis grasp the panting serpent dies." 
THE MOOXGUS. 
The other species of this genus are as follows : 
Widdrington's Ichneumon, 31. Widdringtonii, the only Europeaii species, and found in the 
south of Spain ; the Cape Ichneumon, M. Caffer, of South Africa ; M. Mutgigella, of Abyssinnia ; 
Dr. Smith's Ichneumon, M, Smithii, of the Cape of Good Hope ; the Brown-tipped Ichneu. 
MON, M. ajyiculafa, of the same region; the Garangan, M. Javanica, of Java; the Mangoustb 
Nems, or MooNGUs, M. grisea, of India and Nepaul ; the Nyula, M. nyula, of the same coun- 
tries ; the Brown Ichneumon, AL loalndosa^ of the Cape of Good Hope ; the Malacca Ichneu- 
VoL. I.— 24 
