THE BLACK-BACKED JACKAL 



the jackal, and the various methods suggested and 

 employed to get rid of it. 



The jackal is at the present time the worst form 

 of vermin with which man has to contend in his 

 struggle to colonise South Africa. Regarded from 

 an economic point of view, the jackal has few 

 virtues. The only real service he renders us is the 

 destruction of rats, mice, and some kinds of noxious 

 insects, including that dreaded pest the migratory 

 locust. 



We cannot blame him for refusing to die of star- 

 vation so long as there are tender lambs, kids, 

 poultry, and young ostriches to be had, for we have 

 robbed him of his birthright in the shape of the 

 various game animals and birds. However, as 

 man spreads over the land the jackal must vanish, 

 for the two cannot live in proximity in peace. It 

 is but the operation of the law of the survival of 

 the fittest. 



The Cape Jackal has developed a new vice. 

 It has discovered that by banging ostrich eggs 

 against each other, or on stones, it can break them 

 and so gain access to the nourishing contents. 

 So secretive and cunning is the jackal, that it is 

 often able to quietly steal the eggs from beneath 

 the sitting birds during the hours of darkness, and 

 rolling them quietly away by gentle pushes with 

 its nose, and finding a convenient stone, they are 

 broken by being tilted against it. 



In several parts of the country where the nature 

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