The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-04-21


 but is more abundant in the lowlands.
 The animals native home is in India,
 where he has great reputation as a
 Killer of snakes, and especially the CO.,
 bra, He was brought by some enter
 prisirg individual from India to Jamaica
 for the purpose of killing off the rats
 that caused great injury to the sugar
 cane, About 1877 a sugar planter in
 Porto Rico. who also was troubled by
 rats, conceived the idea of bringing the
 mongoose into that island. On all of
 the plantations a number of dogs and
 men were kept busy killing rats Some 1 times hundreds of dollars of damage would be done to the cane in single
 night The rats gnawed into 1t just above the ground. so that Fermentation would set in and the cane would topple over and be ruined.
 Latimer & Go. undertook the introduce
 ton of the mongoose They brought over three or four pairs from Jamaica, and arranged to keep them in captivity on an estate short distance outside of San Juan. They intended to breed them \ until they had multiplied and then re- 2 lease them. It was not long. however, l bciolS Niit lllllb lCuiio thO oooi to their cage carelessly left open and es- | capped from the inclosure, They multi piled very rapidly, and in the course of | few years they were plentiful in that | section. They have since spread over | the entire island.
 The traveller nowadays sees them fre- quently gliding across the road from the | hedge on one side into that on the other. | It is customary to use for fences the or | dinary barbed wire, stretched on posts, and beside it to plant species of bru millia, which has stiff leaves three inch es wide and about four to five feet long, with keen hooks half an inch or more in length thicl1ly distributed over the outer eage with their points sticking toward the top of the leaf. As each plant has from twenty to forty leaves. growing up somewhat like a century plant, and as they soon multiply and additional plants spring up until the hedge becomes from fifteen to forty feet wide, it can readily be seen that it makes a most complete barrier and at the same time the finest of covers for the mongoose It is practically impos- sible to drive it out or in any way ex- terminate it.
 The sugar planters seem to be fairly well satisfied with the result of the in- troduction of the mongoose, and say that it has reduced the number of rats so that now they do comparatively little damage. But most of the other people of the island, especially the poor and those engaged in raising poultry, are unqualified in their condemnation of the mongoose.
 The rats have adapted themselves to the new element that has been brought into the contest for life, and now build their nests in the trees. They prefer the cocoanut palm when 1t can be had, and in many places the trunks of these trees have been encircled by wide band of tin or sheet-iron, which prevents. the rats from climbing. Rats also live to some extent in other trees, especially in the royal palm, and occasionally in the matched roofs of buildings.
 The closest relative to the mongoose we have in the United States is the wea- sel. The mongoose is about twenty inches long, of which a little less than half is tail has rather short legs nose little more pointed than that of the weasel, and is covered with a thick coat
 
 of coarse rusty gray hair It is called by the people of Porto Rico an ardilla. which is the name given in Mexico and the southwest to the squirrel. It is also known as the mongosta.
 While introduced for the purpose of killing rats, the mongoose has shown a lively appetite for poultry, and has be- come pest to the natives, nearly all of o;ea, las T1a a nt- ! nal east all kinds of small animals liv ing on the ground. including spiders, l snakes and lizards. The island of Vie ques, off the coast of Porto Rico, and | belonging also to the United States, has had the mongoose a much shorter time, l and the people there say that before the | animal was introduced snakes were | quite common. Now one is rarely seen. | On the island of Culebra, close by, there | is no mongoose, and snakes are quite | common.
 The snakes of Porto Rico and the ad jacent islands include one small boa and | one or two species resembling our com mon garter snake. None of them are poisonous It may be said that no poi sonous snakes are found in any of the islands this side of Martinique
 While Porto Rico has an abundance of big centipedes and some very large spiders, their bites seem to be less poi sonous than those of the corresponding species in our own southwestern states There is a small scorpion found there, however, whose sting is perhaps worse than the bites of either of the others.
 Judging by the habits of it's species, the mOngOOse lives in a nest in the | hedge, although I must say that I have never seen a nest. It is probable, how ever that their nests are lined with soft grass and material of that kind. Wher- ever there is crevice in the rocks con- venently at hand they make their home. The habits of the mongoose are similar to those of the weasel. It preys mostly at night. It is said that in Jamaica the mongoose has so largely eXtermnated the ground birds and other animals that live on insects that the tifks have in- creased in number until they threaten to cut down the numbers of the mongoose. But in Porto Rico there is no sign of the being troubled by ticks. The pelt of the mongoose has no commercial value so far as I know, and I could not learn that they were hunted to any eX- l. 1, ,1 rl,.HI I1 Ny<