THE STRIPED MUISHOND OR STINK CAT 



for the reason that its food is of a strictly 

 vegetarian nature, and it plays havoc with the crops 

 and vegetable gardens. 



The muishond, however, has incurred the hatred 

 of the poultry breeder. One of these bloodthirsty 

 little fellows gained access to my fowl-house one 

 night and killed twenty-one fowls. In each case 

 the neck bones near the base of the skull were 

 crushed, or the throat torn out, or both. The 

 dogs the following morning traced the murderer 

 to an adjacent tree. It was lodged between two 

 large branches ten feet from the ground. When 

 dragged down and killed it was found to be greatly 

 distended with the blood of its victims. This is 

 the only instance I have known of a muishond 

 climbing a tree. 



The muishond is exceedingly tough and hard 

 to kill. I have seen them worried by large dogs, 

 and apparently they were little short of a pulpy 

 mass, yet when cast aside they were found in an 

 hour or two to have revived and had vanished into 

 the bush. On an occasion one of them was sur- 

 prised in the act of devouring a pigeon, and my 

 native boy gave chase, and overtaking it battered the 

 creature with a stout stick until it was apparently 

 dead. Bringing the muishond home, he cast it upon 

 the roof of an outhouse, and returning in an hour's 

 time to skin it, he found it had vanished. He 

 traced its spoor in the mud for some distance, 

 but failed to recover it. 



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