NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 
At Perseverance, near Port Elizabeth, Mr. J. 
Martin, a farmer who incubates large batches of 
chickens, was in the habit of keeping them during 
the daytime in camps, or runs enclosed with a low 
fence of wire netting. One day a pair of mungooses 
got through the wire and deliberately slaughtered 
eighty chickens before they were disturbed. 
However, apart from occasional inroads on 
poultry, the Small Grey Mungoose fulfils a most 
important mission in the economy of Nature, for 
of all creatures it is the most persistent in its 
pursuit of rats, mice, and noxious insects, and for 
these reasons it should not be molested, except, 
of course, when it is known to be in the habit of 
preying on poultry. 
From the sportsman’s point of view it is not 
an altogether desirable animal to have on game 
preserves where partridges and other game birds 
are being bred, for it supplements its diet of rats, 
mice, snakes, and insects by eating the young and 
eggs of these game birds. Game birds, however, 
do not usually build their nests near the favourite 
haunts of this mungoose, and it must be borne in 
mind that it destroys vast numbers of rats, and not 
a few snakes, which are themselves great destroyers 
of the eggs and young of both ground and tree- 
frequenting birds. Again, it might be argued 
that game birds are of comparatively little value 
in the economy of Nature, so far as man is con- 
cerned. Indeed they are in many instances a 
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