, 1916-01-15

preys upon all sorts OF animal and insect and
reptile life, ANA.
In India they take Rikki into the house, and
make much Of him. He is better than all the
rat and mouse and beetle traps. The ferc-
est rat that ever lived could not stand up to
Rfkki; The uGliest lizard is a good meal to
him. But it is as an executioner of snakes
that Rikki is greatly prized III India.
The Cobra and many other deadly SER
penis may make human life frightful in In
dia, but Rikki is their master. They repre-
sent to him only Il dinner to lie won by war.
Between the Cobra and Rikki the battle is
fair; each means to eat the other. The snake
means to bite with his fangs, kill with his
poison, and then eat the mungoose at leisure.
Rjkk knows all about that. He awaits tie
coming onslaught, and rs the snake, with
jaws distended, makes his darling stoke,
Rikki makes an even quicker movement to
one side, lodges the fatal blow, aud at the
same moment launches himself with all his
might on the back of the snake, and with his
forty powerful teeth brushes in the skull.
The fight may not end as swiftly as that,
for Rikki may miss his aim, ind leap over the
snake, or fail to grip him; and there may be
much fencing attack before the vital blow is
struck; but never fear for Rlkki. He does
not fear for himself. At the thought Of
combat his long, bristly hair rises on end
but not with terror !. His hair rises like the
quilts Of q porcupinn, so making it difficult
for the fangs of the snake to get q clear
coul Sc to his flesh. Beneath that ample coat
of hair Rikki has the toughest of skins,
which offers further resistance. But sup
posing the worst should happen, and Rlkki
should get really bitten, the result would be
of course, TINT poison would be injected au-
tomaticaily through the hollow fangs into
A. ,,o,ol Al Gl-n ,r1ot - Dill; .
Well, Rlkki still might live even then he
might live. The mungoose and the dor
mouse are two of the things the venom of
the cobra cannot easily kill. Rikki, even
after being bitten, will EFT the serpent's
head, poison glands and oil
Now let us note an important point.
There are some poisons we can safely swal-
low, which would be fatal to us ii injected
directly into our blood. The same might he
thought to apply in the case of Rikki and
his poison meal. For long we thought he
could eat poison and live, yet be killed by
the same poison if it were introduced into
bis flesh. But so many battles have been
witnessed between mungoose and poisonous
snakes that naturalists now feel it safe to say
that Rikki can take his poisoned lite and
vet have q good CHARGE OF life. If not quite
immune to snake venom, it is really agreed
that, by some strange means, he is pa thy SO.
Why, if that be so, should he fence and
dodge and leap with such marvellous agility
in fighting the snake? Simply because the
snakes great forGs can inflict o eerious bite
even if they cannot kill with the poison.
Rikki fights to kill, bnt he fights to escape
unframed, and that is what he does-as a
rule. He is q marvellous little policeman for
II house III India and Malay his services are
available over a large pant of Africa and he
has extended business even in Southern Eu-
rope, with branches in the wilds OF Spain.
Rikki is right where he is; he may be mis-
placed. That is what we found in Jamaica.
Great rats, monsters which might have brok-
en- away from the Pied Pipel's charm, were
eating up all the sugar-cane, running the
planters, imperilling the fortunes of the is
land. After other experiments had been
tried, mungooses were introduced. Then
followed a terrible time for The rats. In
three years not q rat was left in the island.
But what was Rikki- to do then With his
food supply gone, he must fend for himself,
and he gobbled up all the poultry in the is
land, oil the useful animals, all the young of
the insect-eating birds! The result was
that insects multiplied SO enormously that the
last condition was worse than the first, and
Rikki is no more in Jamaica. He and the
--.o:aac ~ pof 1nm on c11pokiOn tarroo~