712 Mit. A. LovBiauGE: NOTES ox 



Kip's nttitiule to baboons is very strange seeing that be is 

 naturally a timid animal, very nervous of approacli, especially 

 when feeding. Like many animals he developed an antipathy to 

 natives, which was difficult to understand as they were very fond 

 of him,, but at four months old he took to menacing them, 

 i?nar)ing and growling and looking very Avicked. Even when 

 furiously annoyed at being tied up for the night his teeth scarcely 

 break the skin. 



He was six-and-a-half months old' when he met his first dog — 

 a quiet little mongrel Dacnshund which accompanied a visitoi-. 

 Kip advanced gi-owling and bristling towards the stranger, and 

 exhibited for the first time a large rufous patch on the base of 

 his tail (dorsally). 



M u s T E L 1 1> ^. 



Mellivoua capeksis Schreb. 

 , Kibakusi in Kikami; Nyergeri in Kisagara, Kisukuma, aiul 

 Kiswahili. 



The Hone)' Badger or Katel is not often met with in East 

 Africa, though probably fairly common and certainly very widel}' 

 distributed. Four specimens were obtained from jNIakindu, Wami 

 River, Kilosa, and Sagcxyo, those from the last-mentionad localit}' 

 being skins without skulls, purchased from a native. A young 

 male measured 480. ie0..105. 30 mm., an adult 770. 198. 130. 

 ?? mm., and a female 670. 200. 112. 30 mm. 



The immature male was one of two individuals encountered on 

 the plains about 7 a.m. one morning, and shot by my native 

 collector. It appears quite common for them to hunt in pairs, 

 which need not necessarily be of opposite sexes, for two adult 

 females were hunting in company on one occasion. 



During July 1&21, a native comyjlained that an animal had dug 

 into his strongly-built mud and wattle chicken-houso, and taken 

 four fowls. 1 set a gun-trap ('22 li.S.A.) over the entrance it 

 had made, and the following night tlie gun went off, but so did the 

 animal without leaving any trace of being hit. A few nights 

 later it returned and took three more fowls in one night, efl;ecting 

 an entrance by digging in a difterent spot. In neither instance 

 was a trace of the fowls left, and presumably they were carried 

 off whole. 



A lion trap was set inside the yard at the spot where it had 

 broken through the fence, and the following morning my boy 

 informed me ihat a ratel was in the trap. The poor l)east had 

 dragged the heavy trap twelve feet and torn a hole in the fence, 

 but couldn't get the trap through. It had chewed a ground-sheet 

 to rags as well as other things within reach, including its own 

 foot, whose claAvs I recovered from its stomach after having shot 

 it. I have known this happen in the case of another ratel, and 

 ha.ve little doubt that in the fierceness of their rage at being 

 caught they lose their sense of pain to some extent, else how 

 could lihoy mutilate themselves ? ' 





