NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 
its shyness, and is always more or less suspicious, 
even to those who feed it, and although after a long 
time it will allow itself to be stroked by its keeper, 
it is apt to bite without giving any warning. When 
taken into captivity in the kittenhood stage and 
kindly and gently treated and frequently handled, 
the genet will grow up as tame as any domestic 
cat. In fact, it is a common practice in the south 
of Europe for the peasants to keep tame genets in 
their houses instead of cats to destroy rats and 
mice. The genet can squeeze its body through 
comparatively small holes and crevices owing not 
only to its body being slender, but to the fact that 
its flesh, skin, and joints are so loose that they flatten 
and bend and offer little resistance when the animal 
desires to elongate itself. 
We kept a live genet in the Port Elizabeth 
Museum, and one night it escaped. The following 
day the entire museum was searched without suc- 
cess. Every crevice and corner into which it was 
considered the genet might possibly have squeezed 
was probed. A few days later a friend happened 
to come to see me, and trotting behind him was a 
terrier dog. Suddenly the terrier became excited 
and began to snap and bark, sniffing at a crevice 
_ between a glass case and a side wall. Listening 
carefully we heard the genet hiss, and an assistant, 
getting on the top of the case, saw the animal 
lying hidden between the wall and the back of the 
glass showcase. The crevice through which it had 
8 
