262 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



tenance, to which a very cynical expression is given by 

 the animal's ugly trick of wrinkling up its enormously 

 long snout. The thick legs, and the feet, armed with 

 large claws, are immensely strong ; so, too, is the broad, 

 flat, almost hairless tail, about the shape of which there 

 is something unpleasantly suggestive of a pufF-adder. 

 The specimen in the Zoo has a damaged tail, the result 

 of the force the captors found it necessary to use in 

 drao^gring it from its hole. A riem was once tied to 

 the tail of an ant-bear, and a span of oxen fastened on 

 to draw it out of the ground. But, after much ineffec- 

 tual tugging, the experiment ended in the breaking of 

 the riem — or of the tail — our informant had forofotten 

 which ; at any rate the animal remained in its hole. 



Many a time does the unwary rider, cantering across 

 the veldt, come to sudden grief in one of the deep, 

 trap-like holes made by the ant-bear, which seems by 

 no means an uncommon animal. But it is quite pos- 

 sible to live many years in South Africa, and, however 

 often you may tumble into its holes, never once see 

 the creature itself. For, being of nocturnal habits, it 

 is active only at night, when it tunnels its way under- 

 ground like a mole, occasionally coming to the sur- 

 face, and now and then emerging in very unexpected 

 places. 



Some members of a hunting-party, camping out for 

 the night, were much surprised to see the ground heave 

 up suddenly in the centre of their tent, the passing of 

 an ant-bear a little below tlie surface being the cause 

 of the miniature earthquake. And during the war in 



