SOUTHERN AFRICA. 185 
antelopes. Upon those parched plains are also found several 
species of a small quadruped which burrows in the ground, 
and Avhich is known to the colonists under the general name 
of meer-cat. They are mostly of that genus of animals to 
which zoologists have given the name of viverra. An eagle, 
making a stoop at one of these, close where we were passing, 
missed his prey ; and both fell a sacrifice, one to the gun, the 
other to the dogs. Both the bird and the quadruped ap- 
peared to us to be undescribed species. Of the eagle, the 
head, neck, back, and abdomen, were of a pale ferruginous 
brown ; wings and tail steel-blue, the latter faintly barred 
with small bands from the root to the middle ; the cera pale 
yellow ; beak and nails black ; the feet entirely covered with 
downy feathers ; length two feet two inches. The viverra 
was wholly of a bright chesnut color ; the tail shaded with 
black hairs, bushy, straight, and white at the extremity ; ears 
short and round ; on the fore feet five, and the hind feet four, 
toes ; the body and tail each one foot long. Others of this 
genus are the muskillatte cat, or ze?iik, of the Systema Natum ; 
the tigrina or tiger-cat ; the melUvora or ratel ; and the cqfra. 
In general these animals are easily domesticated. One 
species, however, is very diflScult, if not impossible, to render 
tame. It resembles the putorius or pole-cat of America, with 
this difference only, that the latter has five parallel white lines 
along the back, and the African species only four, that di- 
verge from the shoulder. When first taken they smell very 
strongly of musk, which however shortly wears off by con- 
finement. There is also found in this part of the country a 
beautiful little ground-squirrel, with a white stripe on each 
VOL. I. B B 
