MUNGOOS, or MONGOOSE, an ich neumon (Herpestes griseus), common in many parts of India, and closely akin to the Egyptian species ichneumon (q.v.). The mungoos is a burrowing, nocturnal, weasel-like animal, tawny yellowish-gray, 16 or 17 inches long, and with a long thick terete tail. It kills numerous birds, sucking their blood and leaving the body un eaten. It also with great adroitness seizes and kills many snakes, the formidable cobra in cluded, usually avoiding the serpent's stroke by its quickness. Its excitement and ferocity in these encounters is almost indescribable. It is, however, commonly domesticated as a mouser in the Orient, and has been colonized in various parts of the world to destroy vermin, usually with sad results; hence the bringing of a living one into the United States has been forbidden by law since 1902. This animal was introduced into Jamaica and some other islands of the West Indies about 1872, and later in Hawaii, in the expectation that it would overcome the plague of rats in the sugar plantations. It did
so, but it multiplied excessively, killed off poul try and insect-eating birds, reptiles and mam mals, which were useful. Many of these ani mals changed their habits somewhat to accom modate themselves to the novel enemy, and the mungoos does not now multiply so rapidly as at first, and does less damage. The same experience was had elsewhere, and has warned other countries to avoid a repetition of it. Con sult Blanford, 'Fauna of British India; Mam mals' (1889); Morris, 'The Mungoos on Sugar Estates in the West Indies) (London 1884); and The Field (London, 13 July 1895); Lyd deker, Richard, 'Royal Natural History) (Lon don 1896); 'Cambridge Natural History' (New York 1904 et seq.).