116 THE HOTTENTOTS.—RATEL. 
says it will then remember him, and lead 
him another time, in preference to any other 
person. When the bird has eaten the honey, 
the young Bees are carefully closed up with 
stones, to prevent the Ratel (a kind of Bad- 
ger) from taking them out; and, as there 
are always a quantity of flowers, the Bees 
never want nourishment.”* 
‘*'To this bird,” says another narrator, 
‘is ascribed the faculty of discovering and 
pointing out to man, and to the quadruped 
called the Ratel, the nests of Wild Bees. It 
is itself exceedingly fond both of honey and 
of the Bee-magots. The morning and even- 
ang are its principal meal-times, at least it is 
then that it shows the greatest inclination 
to come forth, and with a grating cry of 
‘Cheer! cheer! cheer!’ to excite the atten- 
tion of the Ratel, as well as of the Hotten- 
tots and colonists. Somebody, then, repairs 
to the place whence the sound proceeds, when 
the bird, continually repeating its cry of 
‘Cheer! cheer! cheer !’ flies on slowly, and, 
by degrees, towards the quarter where the 
* <« Scenes and Occurrences in Albany,” &c. chap. 
ilkse Ps 352: 
