NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 
Although they, at times, ascend trees when the 
trunks are sufficiently sloping, the mungooses are 
terrestrial by habit. I have frequently seen them 
spring from the ground on to low branches and run 
along them in the most active and confident manner, 
seeking for birds’ nests, tree lizards, and caterpillars. 
The claws of the mungoose are not sharp, and the 
pads of the feet are not provided with any powers 
of suction as is the case with the Tree Dassie (Pro- 
cavia arborea); therefore they are unable to climb 
perpendicular trunks of trees. 
A great deal has been written about the combats 
of mungooses with venomous snakes, and the im- 
munity of these animals to the venom of snakes. 
I had occasion to experiment upon certain of the 
South African species with snake venom, and found 
that they were not immune, as generally supposed. 
However, like most of the cat-tribe of animals, 
they are very tenacious of life, and the venom always 
took much longer to kill them than was the case 
with most other animals of the same size. For 
instance, a rabbit twice the size of a mungoose 
(Mungos pulverulentus) after the subcutaneous in- 
jection of Cape Cobra venom died in fifteen minutes. 
The mungoose, on the contrary, after the injection 
of a similar dose showed symptoms of poisoning, 
but recovered. The mistake which most experi- 
menters fall into is that they gauge the dosage of 
venom according to the weight of the animal, 
under the supposition that it produces certain 
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