20 
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
natives sometimes dig them out of their holes and take 
them alive ; the old ones, however, are with difficulty 
secured, and seldom live long in captivity. The young, 
on the contrary, are very manageable, docile, and play- 
ful. Their general food is flesh in any state, but birds 
and living rats appear to be peculiarly acceptable. They 
are fond of climbing, but perform this operation in a 
clumsy manner ; although they will ramble securely 
along every arm of a branching tree, provided it is 
sufficiently strong to bear their weight. They sleep 
much during the day, but become watchful at night, 
and manifest their uneasiness by a hoarse call or bark 
proceeding from their throat. 
To the Indian variety, whose habits are thus described 
by General Hardwicke, our specimen unquestionably 
belongs, having been transmitted to this country 
from Madras, whither it was brought from the interior. 
It is probably the oldest inhabitant of the Garden, 
into which it was introduced at its first formation, 
after having remained for some months previous in 
Bruton Street. As far as its manners have yet been 
developed, it appears to be, with regard to man at least, 
one of the most playful and good tempered of beasts, 
soliciting the attention of almost every visiter by throw- 
ing its clumsy body into a variety of antic postures, 
and, when noticed, tumbling head over heels with every 
symptom of delight. But towards animals it exhibits 
no such mildness of temper : and it is curious to 
observe the cat-like eagerness with which it watches 
the motions of any of the smaller among them that 
happen to pass before its den, and the instinctive dread 
manifested by the latter on perceiving it. Its food is 
of a mixed nature, consisting, like that of the Bears 
and other less carnivorous beasts, of bread and milk 
in the morning, and flesh in the latter part of the day. 
