NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



its shyness, and is always more or less suspicious, 

 even to those who feed it, and although after a long 

 time it will allow itself to be stroked by its keeper, 

 it is apt to bite without giving any warning. When 

 taken into captivity in the kittenhood stage and 

 kindly and gently treated and frequently handled, 

 the genet will grow up as tame as any domestic 

 cat. In fact, it is a common practice in the south 

 of Europe for the peasants to keep tame genets in 

 their houses instead of cats to destroy rats and 

 mice. The genet can squeeze its body through 

 comparatively small holes and crevices owing not 

 only to its body being slender, but to the fact that 

 its flesh, skin, and joints are so loose that they flatten 

 and bend and offer little resistance when the animal 

 desires to elongate itself. 



We kept a live genet in the Port Elizabeth 

 Museum, and one night it escaped. The following 

 day the entire museum was searched without suc- 

 cess. Every crevice and corner into which it was 

 considered the genet might possibly have squeezed 

 was probed. A few days later a friend happened 

 to come to see me, and trotting behind him was a 

 terrier dog. Suddenly the terrier became excited 

 and began to snap and bark, sniffing at a crevice 

 between a glass case and a side wall. Listening 

 carefully we heard the genet hiss, and an assistant, 

 getting on the top of the case, saw the animal 

 lying hidden between the wall and the back of the 

 glass showcase. The crevice through which it had 



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