THE FOSSA, CIVETS, AND ICHNEUMONS 79 



Phtta by Robert D. Carton'] [Philadelphia 



BINTURONG 



The binturong is placed ioitk the diets. It has a pre- 



to her (her favourite is a sparrow), and makes her 

 usual cry, and Janet run- to her and carries off the 

 bird, which she eats, leather- and all, in a very lew- 

 minutes, if she is hungry." When near a farm, the 

 meerkats will devour eggs and young chickens. 

 They are also said to eat the eggs of the large 

 leopard-tortoise. The commonest i^ the Slender- 

 tailed Meerkat. It is found all over South Africa, 

 anil is very common in the Karroo. It cats injects 

 ami grubs a- well as small animals, and is commonly 

 kept as a pet throughout the Colon)'. 



vVe have now traced the long line of the 

 Carnivora from the lordly Lion, the slayer ol man and 

 his flocks and herds, and the Tiger, equally formidable 

 and no less specially developed for a life of rapine on 

 a great scale, to creatures as small and insignificant 

 as the Meerkat, which is at least as much an insect- 

 feeder as a devourer of flesh, and the Ichneumons 

 and Civets. The highest form of specialisation in the 

 group is the delicate mechanism by which the chief 

 weapons of offense, the claws, are' enabled to keep 

 their razor edge by being drawn up into sheaths when the animal walks, but can be instantly 

 thrust out at pleasure, rigid and sharp as sword-blades. The gradual process by which this 

 equipment deteriorates in the Civets and disappears in the Mongoose should be noted. There 

 are many other carnivora, but none so formidable as those possessing the retractile claws. Thus 

 the Hears, though often larger in bulk than the Lion, are far inferior in the power of inflicting 

 violent injury. At the same time such delicate mechanism is clearly not necessary for the well- 

 'being of a species. The members of the Weasel Tribe are quite as well able to take care of 

 themselves as the small cats, though they have non-retractile and not very formidable claw-. 



Such a very abnornal animal as the BlNTURONG — of which we are able to give an excellent 

 photograph — is doubtless rightly assigned to the place in which modern science has placed it. But 

 it will be found that there are several very anomalous forms quite as detached from any general 

 type as is the binturong. Nature 

 does not make species on any strictly 

 graduated scale. Many of these 

 nondescript animals are so unlike 

 any other group or family' that they 

 seem almost freaks of nature. The 

 binturong is certainly one of these. 



The next group with which we 

 deal is that of the Hyaenas. In these 

 the equipment for catching living 

 prey is very weak. Speed and pursuit 

 are not their metier, but the eating of 

 dead and decaying animal matter, and 

 the consumption of bones. Hence 

 the jaws and teeth are highly de- 

 veloped, while the rest of the body 

 is degenerate. 



Photo by L. Midland, F.Z.SA 



MONGOOSE 



The Indian mongoose is the great enemy of snakes, 

 of the crocodile 



Another species eats the egg% 



