NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



suffered losses of poultry at intervals for a year or 

 more. Thinking that wild cats caused the damage, 

 he set poisoned bait and traps, but without success. 

 One night a half-grown turkey was killed and 

 partly devoured. Recognising the spoor as that of 

 a mungoose, we decided to lie in ambush just before 

 dawn, as I predicted the animal would return just 

 after daylight when the poultry came down from 

 their tree perches. I was aware a mungoose could 

 not have climbed after them, so naturally the in- 

 ference was that it had been in the habit of surpris- 

 ing them at daylight. This proved to be so, for 

 presently we heard a sharp, suddenly stifled cry 

 from a fowl, and saw a struggling hen whose neck 

 was in the jaws of a Water Mungoose. Needless 

 to say the mungoose did not live to witness another 

 dawn. After we had finished our breakfast we sum- 

 moned all the farm hands and dogs and proceeded 

 to the adjacent river (Umsindusi), and eventually 

 succeeded in killing another, presumably the mate, 

 as well as three half-grown specimens. 



From glands situated under the tail the Water 

 Alungoose, when alarmed or seized by an enemy, 

 excretes a fluid which has what might be called a 

 sweetish, nauseating odour, something akin to the 

 combined odour of musk and putrid cabbages. 



In the neighbourhood of Port Elizabeth this 

 mungoose is common. One was actually captured 

 in a patch of scrub near the spruit knowoi as 

 Baaken's River, where it flows through the town to 



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