THE MONGOOSE AND OTHER SMALL ANIMALS
As I have now told the story of the snake, it is well to give a little time to one of the snake's chief enemies, the little weasel-like animal known in Egypt as the Ichneumon and in India as the Mongoose. Larger than a cat, but with a long, slender body, and very quick in its movements, the ichneumon is death to snakes. I cannot say that it is proof against the snake's bite, but it jumps about in so lively a way that the snake gets no chance to bite it, and when it once gets its teeth in the snake's hide it soon puts an end to his career.
This little animal is also death to crocodiles. But you must not think that it deals with the crocodile as it does with the snake. The fact is that it is very fond of the crocodile's eggs, and by digging these out of the sand and eating them it is of much use in cutting down the crocodile crop.
It is easily tamed and becomes a house pet, doing much to keep the house free from rats and mice. Its worst fault is that it loves poultry and is hard to keep out of the chicken coop. The ichneumon has a pretty fashion of squatting down and eating out of its fore-paws like a squirrel. When it sleeps it coils up into a round ball, with its head and tail under its belly.
The Mongoose. The Deadly Foe of Snakes and Rats
The mongoose is a little smaller than the ichneumon, but it is like it in other ways. Not many years ago some of these animals were brought to the island of Jamaica, where rats in the sugar-cane fields were giving the planters a great deal of trouble by gnawing the cane. For a time all went well. The mongoose went for the rats and soon these gnawers grew very few. The planters thought they had done a good thing in the way of saving their sugar-cane.
In time the mongoose was to be seen everywhere and hardly any rats were left. Then the hungry little strangers had to look for food elsewhere and found it in the poultry-yard. The chickens began to follow the rats. Nowadays the planters look on the mongoose as a worse pest even than the rat and would like very much to get rid of their late friend, who makes it very hard to keep chickens and any kind of poultry. They would be glad to find some animal that would serve the mongoose as the mongoose served the rat.
A very tamable little creature is the mongoose, and a very active one also, for it is never still for a minute except when asleep. It is not always hungry, like some other tame animals, but soon gets enough food. But when it does want something to eat it wants it badly and will walk around on its hind legs in man-like fashion after its keeper, and climb up his body till he gives it the food and drink it needs.
The mongoose always wants to know. He must have his nose in everything he sees. He is all the time looking for something new. He would make a good scholar if sent to school. We are told of one that had his doll, his pet rabbit, his toy monkey, all stuffed, and these he played with till the stuffing all came out. If they were stuffed again he would go back to his play. One day he was given a Japanese paper snake and he went for that snake as if it was a live one. First he bit it in two. Then he bit the halves into quarters. Before he let the snake go there was not a piece left big enough for a bite. The little chap knew somehow that he was a born snake killer.
When he could find nothing else to do he would climb into the window and view with delight all that went on outside, the cat, the dog, the horse, the milkman, everything. A game of tennis would hold him quiet for hours, for he was fond of ball play himself and very good at it. When he could find nothing to do or to see he would wander about like a lost lamb, and as a last resort would coil up in his master's lap and go to sleep.
He had no fancy for being locked up in a cage, as had to be done at times, and he let people know this. If a friend of his came into the room where he was caged he would begin to cry like a cat, his voice growing loud and shrill if no notice was taken of him. In a minute more he would be flying around the cage in a fury, tearing up his bedding and flinging it to all quarters. If this had no effect his voice would sink into a wail of despair which it was hard to resist.
But the instant he was taken out all his rage and grief were at an end. He would cuddle up in his master's arms, lay his head lovingly on his cheek and coo and crow away in deep delight.
Leaving the mongoose, we may take a look in upon some other four-footed creatures that make good pets. Among these are such as the chameleon, the odd lizard that has the power to take on a new color whenever it gets tired of the old one; the armadillo, which wears a coat of mail and can roll itself up into a ball that no teeth can bite into; the hedgehog, another little creature that rolls up into a ball with sharp spines sticking out on all sides; the porcupine, that does the same thing and has much longer spines; in fact, almost all kinds of small animals, even those we call house vermin, the rat and the mouse.
We might fancy that pet-lovers would draw a line at rats and mice, but these have often been tamed, at least the white rat and mouse, which some people like for their color. The rat makes a better pet than the mouse, for it is very quick-witted, while the mouse is apt to be dull. Among animal stories there is one we are told about a white rat that seems worth telling.
The owner of this rat found it to be clean, loving and very lively. Like all rats it had the habit of laying up a store of food for future use, and when it found a supply would never stop till it had carried it all away. It was funny to watch it. If a plate of biscuits was put upon the table with no one near by, it would carry them away, one at a time, till not a biscuit was left. They would all be taken to its nesting place, across the room, and laid away for future use.
If it got hold of a hunk of bread too heavy to carry up to its elevated nest, this did not stop its work. It would sit on the floor and gnaw the bread into small bits, carrying those up one at a time. It was fond of warming itself before a coal fire, and seemed to take the fancy that coal was a good thing to have, for it carried it off a piece at a time till it had a store of this hard stuff a foot wide and five or six inches deep.
Very likely many of you have read about how rats will carry off eggs, even taking them down stairs without an egg being broken. It takes two rats to do this, one passing the egg down to the other on the step below. They have even been seen to take eggs up stairs. One rat catches the egg between its fore-paws and its head, and gets up on its hind legs, passing it up to the other, who catches it in its fore-paws. Then they go up another step and keep at this till the top is reached. They are very fond of oil, and when they find bottles of oil have a cute way of their own to get it. First gnawing off the cover, the rat sticks its tail down into the oil, pulls it up well covered, and licks off the oil. Sometimes they take turns, each handing down its tail for another rat to lick. You may see from this that the rat is a very wide-awake little nuisance.
The tame rat we have been speaking of died in good time and a hedgehog became his master's next pet. Have you ever seen a hedgehog? Some of you have, no doubt; but for those who have not I would say that it is a little creature that lives in a hole in the ground or in trees or rocks and comes out at night to feed on mice, frogs, insects and such like prey.
The hedgehog is about a foot long and six inches high, with small black eyes and sharp-pointed head. The odd thing about it is the fact that where most animals are covered with hair this one is covered with spines, hard and sharp, like little thorns. These grow to be about an inch long and there are muscles in the back that cause them to stand up and stick out in all directions.
The Common Hedgehog with his Battery of Spines
When a dog gets busy about a hedgehog, it does not try to run away. All it does is to roll itself up into a ball, its head and tail meeting over its lower parts and its spines sticking up all around. When the dog gets these into his nose a few times he is apt to lose his taste for hedgehog meat. He may roll the animal about with his paws, but that does no good, and he soon goes away with sore head and paws, leaving the hedgehog to unroll and make its way back to its burrow.
When taken home and fed it soon becomes very tame and friendly. It can be handled with safety, for when it is not rolled up its spines lie flat along its back, so that its friends can stroke its back and scratch its nose without harm. These it likes to have done. When it is put on a table it does not a bit mind taking a dive to the floor, for it rolls up so to fall on its spines and thus is not hurt.
A tame hedgehog is a good thing to keep in a garden or kitchen, for it helps to clear the one of worms and the other of roaches and sometimes will catch and kill a rat. It is not afraid to attack snakes, even poisonous ones like the viper. The poison does not seem to do it any harm.
I have spoken of the armadillo as a pet and as an animal that rolls itself into a ball like the hedgehog. Instead of spines, it has a covering of hard, bony plates, which cover the whole body, even the tail. When it rolls itself up it is like a hard stone and can laugh within its coat of mail at the enemies which roll it about but cannot get in.
The armadillo is an American animal, and is found in our country in the state of Texas. It goes south from there through Mexico and on to South America, where it is found everywhere. It lives in large numbers in the woods and on the great grass plains. In its food and habits it is much like the hedgehog, and like it burrows in the ground. To do this it has very strong claws, and these it can use to defend itself when it takes a fancy to fight.
The same person who kept the white rat I have spoken of also had a pet armadillo, though the two were not very good friends. The armadillo was very quick in its motions and the first time it saw the rat it went for it like a lightning flash. The rat was one of the kind of vermin it fed on in its natural state and it thought here was a good chance for a feast. In a minute it had the rat driven into a corner where there was no hole or hiding place and where it stood up as if praying with its paws in the air. In a minute more the armadillo would have made mince meat of the rat with its sharp claws, but its master just then came to the rescue, and saved his pet rat.
The Three-banded Armadillo. An Animal in a Coat of Mail
In the end he punished the armadillo by making a little wagon in which he made it draw the rat about as a passenger.
His armadillo, he tells us, was a famous sleeper, lying asleep about twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. But in its wakeful hour it was very active and lively. It loved to lie before the fire, but if turned over on its back and scratched it grew furious. It could not turn itself back again much easier than a turtle.
The one thing that threw it into a panic was a sudden noise. If, for instance, the poker was thrown down, the scared animal would make a bee-line for its home, and if it missed the mark would tumble around in a fright till it found the entrance to its cage. When it got used to the noise of the poker any other noise would set it off in the same way, and it never got over its panic at a strange and sudden noise.
So many kinds of animals have been tamed at times that I cannot speak of them all. But I must not forget our familiar little friend, the squirrel, one of the prettiest and liveliest of tree-dwellers. To see him seated, with bushy tail curled up over his back, and gnawing away at a nut held between his fore-paws, is to see one of nature's most charming sights. And he is a tameable little creature, easy to keep and to feed, and very pleasing in his ways.
There are many kinds of squirrels, but all of them may be tamed. They need a cage of good size, and a usual feature of the cage is a revolving wheel or cylinder of zinc wire, a sort of tread-mill in which the active little fellow may take all the exercise he wants, making it spin round at a great speed. He needs a snug little ante-room, to which he may retire when tired of his wheel. Any kind of nut will be welcome as food, and even a stale crust of bread or a bit of boiled potato, all of which he will gnaw in his funny way.
A Friendly Gray Squirrel
Many stories of tame squirrels could be told. Here is one which we owe to a Captain Brown. I give it both for its neatness and its odd ending.
It is of a tame squirrel that used to run up its master's leg and pop into his pocket whenever it saw him getting ready to go out. As he went through the streets it would keep in his pocket, sticking its head out in a saucy way to took at people passing. As soon as the outskirts of the town were reached and trees and bushes became common, out of the pocket it would pop, down the leg it would scramble, and up the trees it would climb, nibbling away at the bark and leaves. If its master started on, down it would come and climb back to his pocket. If a cart or carriage came by it would hide till they had passed, for it was timid with any one but its master.
It was not a good friend with the house dog and this seems to have been bunny's fault, for he had a fashion of his own of teasing the dog. If it lay down and went off into a snooze, down would come the squirrel, scamper over its body, and dart off to its cage again before the dog had time to growl or snap.
This squirrel—or it may have been another squirrel which had the same fancy of hiding in its master's pocket—had one night an adventure in which it served its master as well as any watch-dog could have done. The gentleman who kept it used, when he came home at night, to hang his coat behind one of the downstairs doors. This made a neat sleeping place for the squirrel, who would climb up to the pocket, taking some tow with him for bedding.
One night, after the family and the squirrel alike had gone to bed, a burglar made his way into the house and began to peer around for plunder. Seeing the coat hanging on the door, he began with that, putting his hand into the pocket. In an instant he drew it out again with a cry of pain. He had got a sudden bite from the squirrel's sharp teeth. At the noise the man of the house sprang up, seized a poker and ran down stairs. He was in time to capture the burglar, who was just climbing out of the window.