THE BUSHY-TAILED OR ROOT MEERKAT 



for fowls' eggs and chickens. Unlike the muishond, 

 it rarely ventures into fowl-houses. The eggs it 

 levies toll upon are these laid by hens out in the 

 bushes or grass some distance from the homestead. 

 When a hen ventures too far out on the veld with 

 her chicks, a few are snapped up. When dogs are 

 kept at the farm this meerkat always keeps at a 

 considerable distance, as it has a wholesome dread 

 of these animals. 



It has, however, acquired the evil practice on 

 some stock farms of killing small lambs. The 

 lamb is seized by the nose by one or more meerkats, 

 and slowly dragged to the burrow. Should it fall 

 exhausted on the way, the flesh on its face is eaten 

 off. Dead lambs have been found with the head 

 and neck down the meerkats' burrows. Lambs 

 bitten by these meerkats nearly always pine and die. 



From a sportsman's point of view this meerkat 

 does a good deal of harm in eating the eggs and 

 young of game birds. The various species of 

 bustard (Paauw and Korhaan) suffer to a consider- 

 able extent, for the reason that they inhabit the 

 districts most frequented by the Bushy-tailed 

 Meerkat. This meerkat does not make a very 

 interesting pet in captivity. It is shy, suspicious, 

 and cunning, and has none of the interesting and 

 comical ways of its cousin the Slender-tailed Meer- 

 kat. If captured when already adult, it can never 

 be satisfactorily tamed, but if caught young it soon 

 loses its dread of man, and will allow itself to be 

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