The fur of the Genette is of a grey colour, “spotted with small black or brown patches, which are sometimes round and sometimes oblong. The tail, which is as long as the body (about twenty-one inches), is ringed with black and white, the black rings being to the number of nine or eleven. There are white spots on the eyebrows, the cheeks, and the end of the nose.” The civet-pouches are, in this genus, reduced to very slight depressions at the sides of the root of the tail, and although the odour of the animal is tolerably strong--yet not disagreeably so, as in the Civet--there is no perceptible secretion from these pouches. THE MUNGOOS, OR ICHNEUMON.[80] The Ichneumons, or Mungooses, form a well-defined genus of Weasel-like animals, with semi-plantigrade feet, five toes provided with somewhat retractile claws, and long tails. The species now under consideration is found in Southern India as well as “in the North-west Provinces and the Punjab, and throughout the Deccan up to the Nerbudda River. It frequents alike the open country and low jungles, being found in dense hedgerows, thickets, holes in banks, &c., and it is very destructive to such birds as frequent the ground,” for it only sucks the blood, and so kills many birds before it is satisfied. It is sixteen or seventeen inches long, its tail fourteen, and is of a tawny yellowish-grey colour. The head is marked with reddish and yellowish rings, so arranged as to produce a resultant iron-grey hue. There is a curious superstition about the Mungoos, of which Sir Emerson Tennent says: “I have found universally that the natives of Ceylon attach no credit to the European story of the Mungoos (_H. griseus_) resorting to some plant, which no one has yet succeeded in identifying, as an antidote against the bite of the venomous Serpents on which it preys. There is no doubt that, in its conflicts with Cobra di Capello and poisonous Snakes, which it attacks with as little hesitation as the harmless ones, it may be seen occasionally to retreat, and even to retire into the jungle, and, it is added, to eat some vegetable; but a gentleman, who had been a frequent observer of its exploits, assures me that most usually the herb it resorted to was grass, and if this were not at hand, almost any other plant that grew near seemed equally acceptable. Hence has probably arisen the long list of plants, such as the _Ophioxylon serpentinum_[81] and _Ophiorhiza mungos_,[82] the _Aristolochia indica_,[83] the _Mimosa octandria_,[84] and others, each of which has been asserted to be the Ichneumon’s specific; whilst their multiplicity is demonstrative of the non-existence of any one in particular on which the animal relies as an antidote. Were there any truth in the tale as regards the Mungoos, it would be difficult to understand why creatures, such as the Secretary-bird and the Falcon, and others, which equally destroy Serpents, should be left defenceless, and the Ichneumon alone provided with a prophylactic.