With Flashlight and Rifle * 



The ant-bear, a strange-looking animal with long snout 

 and long tail and very strong sharp claws, makes a practice 

 during the wet season of destroying the large ant-hills to 

 be seen everywhere on the velt, in order to feed upon 

 the milliards of white ants thus rendered homeless. Stretch- 

 ing out its long thin tongue, it licks them up in hundreds. 

 Professor Matschie says of the ant-bear that it is a 

 marvellous creature, possessing the snout ot a pig, the head 

 ot an ant-eater, the ears of an ass, the legs of an armadillo, 

 and the body of a kangaroo. A photograph of the ant- 

 bear by night in the act of destroying the ant-hills in the 

 Masai- Xyika country would be something worth trying 

 for. It would, however, be a very troublesome undertaking 

 I myself was unable to attempt it. The ant-bear lives 

 in large deep burrows which you see in hundreds on the 

 velt. Whilst hunting other game I have, dozens of 

 times, fallen into these holes waist-deep when the velt 

 was covered with grass. It would be useless to set traps 

 in these holes in the dry season, or to attempt to get the 

 animals out. During the drought they seem to have a 

 winter sleep. 



The natives are sometimes able to get hold of ant- 

 bears, and it was thus I was enabled to send some skins 

 and skeletons to Germany. The Royal Museum of Natural 

 History in Berlin had at the time only two or three 

 specimens of the species, including one which had been 

 presented by Captain Waldemar Werther, and to which 

 his name has been attached. 



Only twice on the velt did I meet the beautiful 

 black-and-white honey-badger or ratel (Mellivora ratel], 



428 



