228 THE ANT-BEAR 



animals, either in Zambezia or anywhere else, is 

 that quaint creature whose yawning holes dot 

 the surface of the ground sometimes by the score ; 

 this is the Ant-bear. Mr. Tupman describes the 

 mid- Victorian arbour as a refuge which humane 

 men have erected for the accommodation of 

 spiders, but the future writer upon some of the 

 obscurer phases of African zoology will doubtless 

 refer to the ant-bear hole as a refuge for the 

 accommodation of all sorts of less innocent crea- 

 tures. Herein the hyena often spends the hours 

 of daylight ; the hunting dog, after some time 

 spent in enlargement and renovation, here brings 

 forth its piratical brood ; in ant-bear holes lurk 

 the smaller predatory forms, as well as snakes 

 and owls, and herein, should you be mounted 

 and riding with a slack rein, you may take a toss 

 that will be a lesson to you for some time to 

 come. 



During the day ant-bears are never seen, but 

 at night, leaving their subterranean retreats, they 

 come up for a time to the earth's surface, with 

 disastrous results occasionally from the teeth and 

 claws of the midnight prowlers. 



I discovered one of these animals in Shupanga 

 in 1909, obviously the kill of a leopard, which I 

 must have disturbed soon after the fatal deed. 

 This was the first ant-bear I had ever seen and 

 I examined it with no small interest. It was a 

 clumsy-looking, short-limbed creature, provided 

 with lengthy digging claws, covered with thin hair 

 of a dirty reddish colour. A long, pig-snouted 

 face was crowned by donkey-like ears, which 



