Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was the most famous mongoose of all the mongooses.
The word derives from the Marathi word mangus, with the stress on the 'u'; hence the plural derivative.
There is no particular collective noun for the mongoose but more than a couple are usually referred to as 'a pack'.
The collective noun for nuns, bye the bye, is a 'superfluity'. This derives from the 'Book of St Albans' attributed to one Juliana Barnes in 1486.
Ain't that an amazing piece of information though?
Rikki-tikki woke up with a jump, for the mongooses are light sleepers. "Oh, it's you," said he. "What are you bothering for? All the cobras are dead. And if they weren't, I'm here." Rikki-tikki had a right to be proud of himself. But he did not grow too proud, and he kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with tooth and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its head inside the walls.
