When a mongoose attacks a snake it dances about in front of the reptile, and pretends to be about to spring upon it, until the snake strikes. Then, like lightning, it leaps over the snake's head, or underneath its open jaws, or round to one side, and gives it a sharp bite just at the back of its neck. This renders the snake quite harmless, paralyzing it so that it cannot use its fangs. Then the mongoose crunches up its head, eats a little of the body also if it is very hungry, and goes off to look for another.
Rats, too, are killed in great numbers by the mongoose. So in the year 1871, when these animals swarmed in some of the West Indian Islands to such an extent that it was feared that the sugar-cane plantations would be wholly destroyed by them, nine mongooses were set free in Jamaica. Very soon they began to multiply, and the rats began to decrease, till in about two years' time the mischievous little animals were almost entirely destroyed. So mongooses were turned down in other islands, with equally satisfactory results. Unfortunately, however, the mongooses soon found out that fowls and chickens were even nicer than rats, and began to visit the hen-roosts at night. Then they took to killing young lambs, and even small pigs, while they also did a great deal of damage to mangoes and yams.
So now the planters had to turn their attention to destroying mongooses, and on one estate alone more than fourteen hundred were trapped in about two months.
The Egyptian mongoose is a rather larger animal, being about three feet in length from the head to the tip of the tail. Like its Indian relation, it preys upon snakes; but it also feeds very largely upon crocodile's eggs, which it digs out of the sand on the banks of the rivers. For this reason it was venerated by the ancient Egyptians, who used to treat it with the greatest reverence while it lived, and to embalm its body and bury it in the tombs of the kings when it died, just as they did with the cat and the sacred baboon.
Meerkats
The last of the civet-like animals about which we can tell you is the meerkat, sometimes known as the suricate. It is found in South Africa, and is a small, slender-bodied animal of a light grizzled gray color, with a number of black stripes running across its back, while the ears are black, and the tail is yellowish with a black tip.
Meerkats live in large colonies, almost like rabbits, each animal scratching out for itself a deep hole in the ground. If you were to drive across the South African veldt, you would very likely come across one of these curious meerkat warrens, and would see several hundred of the little animals sitting upright on their hind legs with their front paws hanging down, just like so many small dogs "begging." Until you came quite close they would remain quietly watching you. But the moment that you stopped and attempted to seize one of them there would be a sudden whisk of hundreds of tails, and down they would all pop into their burrows as if by magic.
As they are gentle creatures, and very clean in their habits, meerkats are often kept as pets, and in many parts of Cape Colony there is scarcely a single house without them. You would think that the dogs would be very jealous of them, wouldn't you, and that they would be very much afraid of the dogs? But, strange to say, the two are nearly always the best of friends, and may often be seen trotting about after their master together.
The Aard-Wolf
This is such a very odd animal that it has been placed in a family all by itself, though there can be no doubt that it is related to the civets on the one side and to the hyenas on the other. In size it is about as big as a fox, but with very much longer legs; and in general appearance it certainly resembles a half-grown striped hyena. But then its skull and teeth are not at all like those of a hyena; they are like those of a very big mongoose. So the aard-wolf evidently forms a connecting link between the two creatures.