NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 
is highly delighted. Often when unmercifully 
teased she will pretend to be angry, and growls in 
a harsh, grating way, loud and long, but she never- 
theless continues to bite and worry in play. I placed 
a young ratel with her one day, and she, being unduly 
rough with it, an assistant brought a stout stick 
and belaboured her with vigour; but he might as 
well have beaten a door-mat. She didn’t mind it 
in the least, and rather enjoyed the thumping. It 
was only when he happened to tap her on the nose 
that she lost her temper and growled like the sound 
of half a dozen men filing iron ; and her eyes flashed 
like green fire in the gloom. However, ten minutes 
later she was lying on her back and crooning with 
delight, while the same man tickled her ribs with 
his fingers. 
Her claws were growing rather long, and she had 
taken advantage of the fact, and had started to 
tunnel a hole through the brick wall at the back of 
her cage, so we decided to clip her nails. She 
thought it fine fun when we tied her up in a mealie 
sack, but when we cut sundry holes in the bag and 
began pulling her legs through, she evidently 
thought we were up to something and grew sus- 
picious ; so fiercely did she struggle and so strong 
was she that it took three grown men three-quarters 
of an hour to cut her toe-nails. She bent her fore 
paws and a strong man failed to straighten out the 
limbs, although he had the advantage of gripping 
her by the paw with a gloved hand. The Honey 
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