Catherine Ho11e, age Il, of Salt Lake City, Utah, for her question:

Is the mongoose a bird?

The mongoose is about the size of a house cat and somewhat more furry. He has soft round ears, a foxy face and a foxy tail. His short legs end in clawed toes and his body is long and lithe like that of a weasel. Like a weasel, he likes to fight for his dinner and like a cat he walks on soft paws and pounces on his prey. From these facts you can sea that the mongoose is not a bird and in no way related to a goose, He is a furry mammal.

We fine, the fascinating mongoose in the tropics of the Old World.. There he is at constant war with deadly cobras, rats, mice, scorpions and other pests that plague the life of man. A seven‑foot cobra, primed to strike with deadly fangs, is no match for a furry two‑foot mongoose.

The mongoose moves faster than the snake can strike and time after time he tempts the snake to strike and dodges out of the way. At last the snake is dazed and tired. The mongoose moves in, breaks the hooded neck with one bite and eats his enemy head first, poison glands and all.

You might think that the valuable mongoose could help us get rid of our rattlers and other poisonous snakes, to say nothing of our rats and mice. The people of the West Indies had a similar idea and in 1878 they imported some of the little scrappers from India. These transplanted mongooses were supposed to kill the dangerous ferde lance snakes in Martinique and the sugar cane rats in Jamaica. And so they did.

But they then started on the lizards frogs, ground birds and the harmless snakes, Then they discovered the poultry runs and raided them. People became annoyed. and worried, for the little fellows had by now become wild and out of control. Soon it was noticed that wherever there were mongooses there were plagues of insects: The furry visitors had eaten up birds, snakes, fro .‑s and other animals that help keep down the insect population.

Those few visitors, brought in to do a simple job, got out of control and completely upset the balance of nature.

The U.S. learned a valuable lesson from this. It is never safe to import a wild animal and turn him free among the animals and. plants that have been living together with give‑and‑take for many centuries. In 1900, the Lacey Act was passed which forbids anyone from bringing a mongoose into the country, That is why you will never find one in Americas not even in a zoo.