THE SERVAL CAT 



now adult. When in the act of opening the top 

 half of the door to renew the water in the drinking- 

 vessel, a servant came from an outhouse and cast 

 a dish of grain upon the ground behind me for the 

 pigeons and fowls. The sight of the pigeons 

 flying down, and the poultry gobbling up the food, 

 was too much for those cats, and while I was bend- 

 ing down to reach for the dish both cats leap- 

 frogged over my back and played havoc with the 

 poultry. Shouting to the servant to hold back 

 the spring door of the aviary, I seized Foxey and 

 hurled her through the small doorway, and then 

 the other. The latter was a powerful and savage 

 beast, and never before had been handled, but so 

 intent was it on worrying the life out of a fowl that 

 it hadn't time to think of turning on me when in 

 desperation I grasped it by the loose skin of its back. 



I endeavoured to wean these two cats on to a 

 diet of bread and porridge and milk, with a weekly 

 supply of meat. Although they always ate up 

 their food greedily they did not thrive, for it 

 brought on a condition of chronic diarrhoea, which 

 persisted until I again fed them on meat only. 

 Their gastric and intestinal juices were not of a 

 nature to digest starchy foods, and digestive and 

 intestinal disturbances were consequently induced. 



The Serval when in the vicinity of man is a pest, 

 by reason of its fondness for poultry, young 

 ostriches, kids, and lambs, and the farmer does his 

 best to exterminate it in his neighbourhood. 



141 



