THE BLACK-BACKED JACKAL 



bush or scrub within reasonable distance, it makes 

 for it and disregards any holes it may pass. 



When the time is approaching for establishing a 

 home and rearing a family, the jackal makes a bur- 

 row, or takes possession of a deserted Aard Vark's 

 hole ; and in the bottom of this a family of puppies 

 is reared. Five to six pups at a birth seem to be 

 the average. As many as nine have been recorded. 



For the first two or three days the mother stays 

 with the cubs a good deal in the hole, but after that 

 she keeps away in the thick scrub, and returns during 

 the evening and before daylight to suckle them. 

 Sometimes the burrow is made amongst the boulders 

 on the side of a krantz, or some other rocky situa- 

 tion. In these instances the mother jackal enters 

 the hole freely, for she is well aware her human or 

 canine foes cannot dig her out, for nothing less than 

 blasting would avail. A farmer who has for many 

 years past made a practice of hunting for the breed- 

 ing burrows of jackals with terrier dogs, and digging 

 out the young ones, informs me that only on one 

 occasion did he ever find an adult jackal in a hole. 

 In this instance it was a mother which had just 

 given birth to her litter of puppies. 



A rather remarkable fact is the occurrence of 

 young jackals and porcupines in the same burrow. 

 Mr. S. Bonnin Hobson, in the Cape Agricultural 

 Journal, writes that he frequently found porcupines 

 and jackal puppies in the same burrow, and that 

 when he dug them out, the puppies took refuge 

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