The mungoose lives in a hole excavated by itself. It is diurnal in habits, and feeds largely on animal food. Jerdon states that it is “very destructive to such birds as frequent the ground. Not infrequently it gets access to tame pigeons, rabbits, or poultry, and commits great havoc. . . . I have often seen it make a dash into a verandah where some cages of mynas, parrakeets, etc., were daily placed, and endeavour to tear them from their cage.” But birds are not easy for a terrestrial creature to procure, so that its animal food consists chiefly of mice, small snakes, lizards, and insects. Jerdon states that “it hunts for and devours the eggs of partridges, quail, and other ground-laying birds.” I am inclined to think that the carnivorous propensities of the mungoose have been exaggerated, for its food seems to contain a considerable admixture of vegetable substances. In captivity it will eat bread and bananas, although it requires animal food in addition. McMaster records the case of a mungoose killed near Secunderabad, of which the stomach contained a quail, a portion of a custard apple, a small wasp’s nest, a blood-sucker lizard, and a number of insects—quite a recherché little repast!
In Lahore I, or rather my wife, made the discovery that the mungoose is very fond of bird-seed. A certain individual contrived to spend the greater part of the day in our bungalow. He was probably attracted in the first instance by the amadavats. Finding that these were secure in their strongly-made cage, he turned his attention to their seed, and found that it was good. When he had devoured all that had fallen to the ground he would endeavour by means of his claws to extract seed from within the cage. This used to alarm the birds terribly; one night their flutterings woke me up. It takes an amadavat a long time to learn that it is safe in its cage. It is not until after months of captivity that it will sit on the floor of its house and gaze placidly at the hungry shikra which has alighted on the top. For this reason we did not encourage that mungoose. I may say that we distinctly discouraged it by throwing things at it, or chasing it out of the bungalow whenever we saw it. But it soon became so bold that, unless we ran out of the bungalow after it, it used to remain in hiding in the verandah, and, a few seconds after all was quiet, its little nose would appear at the doorway.
The impudence of the Indian house-crow is great, that of the sparrow is colossal, that of the striped squirrel staggering, but the impudence of all these is surpassed by that of the mungoose. Small wonder, then, that it makes an excellent pet. McMaster kept one that died of grief when separated from him. But, in order to tame a mungoose, the animal must be captured while young. Babu R. P. Sanyal, in his useful Handbook on the Management of Animals in Captivity, writes: “Adult specimens 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 man. They have been known to refuse nourishment and to starve to death.”
A mungoose (Herpestes ichneumon) allied to our Indian species is common in Egypt, where it is known as Pharaoh’s rat or Pharoe’s mouse. It is frequently trained by the inhabitants to protect them from rats and snakes.
The mungoose is a ratter without peer. Bennet, in his Tower Menagerie, states that “the individual now in the Tower actually, on one occasion, killed no fewer than a dozen full-grown rats, which were loosed to it in a room 16 feet square, in less than a minute and a half.” The Egyptian species eats crocodiles’ eggs, so that Diodorus Siculus remarks that but for the ichneumon there would have been no sailing on the Nile. The Indian species seems to display no penchant towards crocodiles’ eggs.
XVIII
THE SWAN
“With that I saw two swannes of goodly hewe
Come softly swimming downe the lee;
Two fairer birds I yet did never see;
The snow, which does the top of Pindus strew,