DWELLERS TOGETHER. 9 1 



the evenings and mornings it is to be found out of 

 doors, when, on being alarmed, it sits upright at 

 the entrance to its burrow ; so upright, indeed, that 

 it appears difficult to imagine where the kink can 

 come in its caudal appendage so as to allow r it to 

 be held perpendicular. Like the squirrel, it uses 

 its fore-paws as hands, which, when not employed 

 in transferring food to its mouth, it crosses in front 

 of its chest with an air of devotion. 



Meer-kats live together in communities, and I 

 should not doubt they lead a very happy life, but that, 

 from such close association, they interfere with each 

 other's domestic affairs. When secreted behind an 

 ant-hill with my binocular, I have noticed this. I 

 believe that most of their troubles originate from 

 the lady wives showing preference to neighbours. It 

 is not to be supposed that these beasts can have 

 travelled to England to learn such delinquencies, but 

 the lady meer-kats seem to pay much more attention to 

 their visitors than they do to their lords and masters. 



In the burrows of the meer-kat the puff adder and. 

 pearl- spotted owl always appear to find a shelter. It 

 is open to question whether their visits to these 

 burrows are not dictated by selfish motives. A 



