Hieroglyphics of Horapollo, tr. Alexander Turner Cory, [1840], at sacred-texts.com
When they would represent a man that is feeble, and unable of himself to help himself, but who does so by the aid of others, they delineate an ICHNEUMON. For this animal, when it spies a serpent, does not at once attack it, but by its noise calls others to its assistance, and then attacks the serpent.