The Opelousas courier., 1899-07-15
M0NGOOSEIN PORTORICO
urpopucED BY SUGAR PLANTERS
TO KILL OFF THE RATS.

,sads Themselves Welcame by Ex-
..,.nne the Pest That Threatened the
n.as-Are Now Turning Their Atten-
.son to PouItry-This Is Frowned Upon.
The z%oologist of the Smithsonian in
.,;tntion, who has just returned from
.he island, says that the mongoose is
~ nresent found all owe Porto Rico
from one end of the island to the
other, from the sugar plantations
sIons the coast to the tops of the
maintains of the interior, but is more
abundant in the lowlands. The ami
malls native home is in India, where
he has a great reputation as a killer of
snakes, and especially the cobra. He
was brought by some enterprising in
diyidual from India to Jamaica for the
nurpose 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
mopgoose into that island. On all of
the plantations a number of dogs and
men were kept busy killing rats.
Sometimes hundreds of dollars of
damage would be done to the cane in
a single night. The rats gnawed into
it Just above the ground, so that fer
mentation would set in aud the cane
would topple owe and be ruined.
Latimer & Go. undertook the intro
duction of the mongoose. They
brought over three or four pairs from
Jamaica, and arranged to keep them
in captivity on an estate a short dis
lance outside of San Juan. They in
tended to breed them until they had
multiplied and then release them. 1t
was not long, however, before the
little animals found the door of their
cage carelessly left open and escaped
from the inclosure. They multiplied
very rapidly and in the course of a
few years they were plentiful in that
section. They have since spread over
the the entire island.
The traveller nowadays sees them
frequently gliding across the road
from the hedge on one side into that
on the other. 1t is customary to use
for fences the ordinary barbed wire,
stretched on posts, and beside it to
plant o species Of brumilla, which has
stiff leaves three inches wide and
about four to five feet long, with keen
hooks half an inch or more in length,
thickly distributed over the outer
edge, 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 500 multiply and additional
plants spring up until the hedge be-
comesf from fifteen to forty feet wide,
it can readily be seen that it makes a
most complete barrier and at the sam )
time the finest of covers for the mon
goose. It is practically impossible to
drive it out Oh in any way exterminate
it.
The sugar planters seem to be fairly
we'll satisfied with the result of the
introduction 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 con-
demnation 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 tire s.
They prefer the cocoanut palm when
it can be had, and in many places the
trunks of these trees have been en-
circled by a wide band Of tin or sheet
iron, which prevents the rats from
climbing. Rats also live to some ex-
tent in other trees, especially ii. the
royal palm, and occasionally in the
matched roofs of buildings.
The closest relative to the mon
goose we have in the United States is
the weasel. The mongoose is about
twenty inches long, of which a little
less than half is tail; has rather short
legs, a nose little more pointed than
that Of the weasel, andis covered with
athick coat of coarse, rusty gray hair.
1t is called by the people OF Porto
Rico an s'ardilla," which is the name
given in Mexico and the southwest to
the squirrel. It is also known as the
'tmongosta."
While introduced for the purpose
of killing rats, the mongoose has
shown a lively appetite for poultry,
and has become a pest to the natives,
nearly all Of whom raise more or less
fowl. The animal eats all kinds CT
small animals living on the ground,
including spiders, snakes and lizards.
The island of Vieques, off the coast OF
Porto Rico, aud belonging to the
United States, has had the mongoose
q much shorter time, and the people
there say that before the animal was
introduced snakes were quite COM
mon. 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
adjacent islands include one small boa
Ind n or two species resembling our
eommon garter snake. None OF them
lis poisonous. 1t may be said that NJ
poisonous 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
bpiders, their bites seem to be less
poisonous than those Of the CORE
spending species in our W south
western state4. There is a small scor-
pion found@dhere, however, whose
sting is perhabs worse than the bites