phere, the mongoose is a pest;
and the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture has done well
in securing the enactment of a law peremptorily prohibiting the
importation of any animals of that species into the United States or any
of its colonies. The fierce temper, indomitable courage and vaulting
appetite of the mongoose would make its actual introduction in any of
the warm portions of the United States a horrible calamity. In the
southern states, and all along the Pacific slope clear up to Seattle, it
could live, thrive and multiply; and the slaughter that it could and
would inflict upon our wild birds generally, especially all those that
nest and live on the ground, saying nothing of the slaughter of poultry,
would drive the American people crazy.

Fancy an animal with the murderous ferocity of a mink, the agility of a
squirrel, the penetration of a ferret and the cunning of a rat,
infesting the thickets and barnyards of this country. The mongoose can
live wherever a rat can live, provided it can get a fair amount of
animal food. Not for $1,000,000 could any one of the southern or Pacific
states afford to have a pair of these little gray fiends imported and
set free. If such a calamity ever occurs, all wheels should stop, and
every habitant should turn out and hunt for the animals until they are
found and pulverized. No matter if it should require a thousand men and
$100,000, _find them!_ If not found, the cost to the state will soon be
a million a year, with no ending.

In spite of the vigilance of our custom house officers, every now and
then a Hindoo from some foreign vessel sneaks into the country with a
pet mongoose (and they do make great pets!) inside his shirt, or in the
bottom of a bag of clothing. Of course, whenever the Department of
Agriculture discovers any of these surreptitious animals, they are at
once confiscated, and either killed or sent to a public zoological park
for safe-keeping. In New York, the director of the Zoological Park is so
genuinely concerned about the possibility of the escape of a female
mongoose that he has issued two standing orders: All live mongooses
offered to us shall at once be purchased, and every female animal shall
immediately be chloroformed.

If _Herpestes griseus_ ever breaks loose in the United States, the crime
shall not justly be chargeable to us.

THE ENGLISH SPARROW.--In the United States, the English sparrow is a
national sorrow, almost too great to