THE BLACK-BACKED JACKAL 
bush or scrub within reasonable distance, it makes 
for it and disregards any holes it may pass. 
When ‘the time is approaching for establishing a 
home and rearing a family, the jackal makes a bur- 
“row, or takes possession of a deserted Aard Vark’s 
hole ; and in the bottom of this a family of puppies 
is reared. Five to six pups at a birth seem to be 
the average. As many as nine have been recorded. 
For the first two or three days the mother stays 
with the cubs a good deal in the hole, but after that 
she keeps away in the thick scrub, and returns during 
the evening and before daylight to suckle them. 
Sometimes the burrow is made amongst the boulders 
on the side of a krantz, or some other rocky situa- 
tion. In these instances the mother jackal enters 
the hole freely, for she is well aware her human or 
canine foes cannot dig her out, for nothing less than 
blasting would avail. A farmer who has for many 
years past made a practice of hunting for the breed- 
‘ing burrows of jackals with terrier dogs, and digging 
out the young ones, informs me that only on one 
occasion did he ever find an adult jackal in a hole. 
In this instance it was a mother which had just 
given birth to her litter of puppies. 
A rather remarkable fact is the occurrence of 
young jackals and porcupines in the same burrow. 
Mr. S. Bonnin Hobson, in the Cape Agricultural 
Fournal, writes that he frequently found porcupines 
and jackal puppies in the same burrow, and that 
when he dug them out, the puppies took refuge 
95 
