CHAPTER VIII

THE CIVETS, THE AARD-WOLF, AND THE HYENAS

Between the great tribes of the dogs and the cats come three small but rather important families, one of which contains the civets, while the aard-wolf belongs to the second, and the hyenas to the third. We must tell you a little about each.

CIVETS

First of all, then, come the civets; and first among the civets is the fossa, which is found in Madagascar.

This is a very curious animal. It is about five feet long from the end of its snout to the tip of its tail, and has a body shaped much like that of a weasel. Its fur is pale reddish brown in color, and reminds one of the coat of a dachshund dog. But the oddest thing about the fossa is its way of walking. Some animals walk on the tips of their toes, like the cats and the dogs. We call these digitigrades. Others plant their feet flat upon the ground, like the bears. We call these plantigrades. But the fossa does neither, for its feet have half-soles only, the front part being quite bare underneath, while the hind part is covered with hair. And as it walks the animal places the bare part of its feet upon the ground, while the hind part is lifted up; so that it is half a digitigrade and half a plantigrade.

Then it has claws just like those of a cat, which are drawn back into sheaths while not in use, so that their sharp points may not be worn down by rubbing against the ground. No doubt this is the reason why the animal is able to climb so well. If you go to look at the fossa in a zoo you will be quite surprised at its activity. In its double cage, with one compartment above the other, and two or three stout branches on which it can take exercise, it goes running up and down from one to the other, and backward and forward from the branches to the walls, and from the walls to the branches, with such wonderful swiftness that it is really not at all easy to follow its movements.

But don't be tempted to stroke the animal, if it happens to be lying quietly near the bars, for although it looks very gentle it is in reality a most savage creature, and has hardly ever been tamed. And partly for this reason, and partly because it only comes out to hunt for prey by night, we know very little about its habits.

The true civets have much stouter bodies than the fossa. Their heads are long and narrow, with the muzzle drawn out almost into a point, their legs are quite short, and along the back runs a crest of stiff hairs, which can be raised and lowered at will, just like the spines of the hedgehog.

CIVET PERFUME

Six different kinds of civets are known, five of them being found in Asia, and one in Africa, and they are chiefly remarkable for producing a most powerful perfume. This perfume is obtained in a very curious way. It is secreted in a kind of double pouch under the body, close to the root of the tail, and as it is continually being formed, the animal is much too valuable to be killed in order that its pouch may be emptied. At the same time, its teeth and claws are so sharp and strong, and it knows so well how to use them, that it would be a most dangerous creature to handle. So when the perfume has to be taken, the animal is forced into a long and very narrow cage, in which it is held so close a prisoner that it can neither scratch nor bite. Then the contents of the pouch are scraped out by means of a long, slender spoon, which is passed through a hole under the cage.

Each side of this pouch is about as big as an almond, and the contents are thick and greasy in character, almost like butter. When the animal is at liberty the perfume is dropped from time to time, in lumps about as big as an ordinary hazelnut.

INDIAN CIVET

The best known of these animals is the Indian civet, which is about four feet in length, including the tail. The general color of its fur is dark gray, sometimes with a yellowish tinge, and on the chest, shoulders, and thighs are a number of dark stripes. The crest of hairs along the back is glossy black, and the tail is marked with six black rings and five white ones. It is a solitary animal, and is hardly ever seen during the daytime, which it spends in hiding among bushes, or in long, thick grass, coming out after dark to search for the lizards, frogs, birds, and other small creatures upon which it feeds.

GENETS

The genets may be described as small civets, with narrower bodies, shorter legs, and longer tails, and without the curious pouch for producing perfume.

One of these animals, the common genet, is found in Spain and the south of France, as well as in Southwest Asia, and the northern parts of Africa. It is between three and four feet in total length, and is yellowish gray in color, with blotches of dark brown scattered all over the body. It is a very gentle creature, and is easily tamed, being often kept in houses to destroy rats and mice, just as we keep cats.

The palm-civets live in trees, chiefly in palm-trees, and they are so fond of drinking the sweet juice, or toddy, which the natives collect in small vessels suspended on the trunks, that they are often known as toddy-cats.

One of these animals is very common in many parts of India, where it is in the habit of taking up its abode in the thatched roofs of the native huts. It is often tamed by Europeans, and after roaming about the house all night in search of mice and cockroaches will come up to its master's bedroom, jump up on his bed, snuggle away under his pillow, and there sleep soundly until late in the following day. But if it finds a chance it will get into the poultry-houses and kill some of the fowls, in order to suck their blood; so that it has to be looked after very carefully.

There are ten or eleven different kinds of these animals, the commonest of which is the Indian palm-civet. It is about as big as a rather big cat, and is brownish gray in color, with very coarse and rather ragged fur. It has an odd way of twisting up its tail into a very tight coil, and for this reason is sometimes known by the name of paradoxure, a word which signifies queer-tailed.

THE BINTURONG

The binturong, or bear-cat, as it is often called, may be recognized at once by the long tufts of black hair upon its ears. Its fur, too, is entirely black, without any gloss except upon the head, which is gray, and its tail is very long and bushy, and is prehensile at the tip, like that of a spider-monkey. When the animal is climbing it makes a great deal of use of this organ, seldom moving unless it is tightly coiled around a branch. But it seems hardly ever to hang from a bough by its tail alone, as the spider-monkeys so often do.

The binturong is a native of Assam, Siam, and some of the larger islands in the Malay Archipelago. It is not at all an uncommon animal, but is seldom seen, for it not only lives in the thickest and darkest parts of the forests, which are scarcely ever trodden by the foot of man, but spends the whole of the day fast asleep in some snug retreat, with its head completely buried beneath its big bushy tail. And even if it is found and disturbed it only gives an angry snarl and shows its teeth, and then goes to sleep again.

MONGOOSES

Of course you have heard of the mongooses. They look somewhat like weasels with very long tails, which are thickly covered with hair. The head is pointed, with a rather sharp nose, the ears are small and rounded, the legs are very short, and the claws cannot be drawn back into sheaths, so that they are always projecting like those of a dog. The general color of the body is either brownish or reddish gray. But the fur has a peculiar speckled appearance, which is due to the fact that all the longer hairs are marked with alternate rings of black and white, like those upon a surveyor's measuring-pole.

At least sixteen kinds of mongooses are found in different parts of the world, but we shall only be able to tell you about two.

The first of these is the Indian mongoose, which is common in almost all parts of the great country from which it takes its name. And it is one of the most useful of all animals, for although it will feed upon mice, small birds and their eggs, lizards, and even upon insects and fruit when it is really hungry, there is nothing of which it is so fond as a snake.

Now snakes are more plentiful in India, perhaps, than in any other country in the world. Many of them are terribly poisonous, and kill at least twenty thousand people every year; so that an animal which destroys them is very useful. Many people keep tame mongooses in their houses just as we keep cats, knowing that if a snake should find its way indoors they are sure to find it and kill it.

When a mongoose attacks a snake it dances about in front of the reptile, and pretends to be about to spring upon it, until the snake strikes. Then, like lightning, it leaps over the snake's head, or underneath its open jaws, or round to one side, and gives it a sharp bite just at the back of its neck. This renders the snake quite harmless, paralyzing it so that it cannot use its fangs. Then the mongoose crunches up its head, eats a little of the body also if it is very hungry, and goes off to look for another.

Rats, too, are killed in great numbers by the mongoose. So in the year 1871, when these animals swarmed in some of the West Indian Islands to such an extent that it was feared that the sugar-cane plantations would be wholly destroyed by them, nine mongooses were set free in Jamaica. Very soon they began to multiply, and the rats began to decrease, till in about two years' time the mischievous little animals were almost entirely destroyed. So mongooses were turned down in other islands, with equally satisfactory results. Unfortunately, however, the mongooses soon found out that fowls and chickens were even nicer than rats, and began to visit the hen-roosts at night. Then they took to killing young lambs, and even small pigs, while they also did a great deal of damage to mangoes and yams.

So now the planters had to turn their attention to destroying mongooses, and on one estate alone more than fourteen hundred were trapped in about two months.

The Egyptian mongoose is a rather larger animal, being about three feet in length from the head to the tip of the tail. Like its Indian relation, it preys upon snakes; but it also feeds very largely upon crocodile's eggs, which it digs out of the sand on the banks of the rivers. For this reason it was venerated by the ancient Egyptians, who used to treat it with the greatest reverence while it lived, and to embalm its body and bury it in the tombs of the kings when it died, just as they did with the cat and the sacred baboon.

MEERKATS

The last of the civet-like animals about which we can tell you is the meerkat, sometimes known as the suricate. It is found in South Africa, and is a small, slender-bodied animal of a light grizzled gray color, with a number of black stripes running across its back, while the ears are black, and the tail is yellowish with a black tip.

Meerkats live in large colonies, almost like rabbits, each animal scratching out for itself a deep hole in the ground. If you were to drive across the South African veldt, you would very likely come across one of these curious meerkat warrens, and would see several hundred of the little animals sitting upright on their hind legs with their front paws hanging down, just like so many small dogs "begging." Until you came quite close they would remain quietly watching you. But the moment that you stopped and attempted to seize one of them there would be a sudden whisk of hundreds of tails, and down they would all pop into their burrows as if by magic.

As they are gentle creatures, and very clean in their habits, meerkats are often kept as pets, and in many parts of Cape Colony there is scarcely a single house without them. You would think that the dogs would be very jealous of them, wouldn't you, and that they would be very much afraid of the dogs? But, strange to say, the two are nearly always the best of friends, and may often be seen trotting about after their master together.

THE AARD-WOLF

This is such a very odd animal that it has been placed in a family all by itself, though there can be no doubt that it is related to the civets on the one side and to the hyenas on the other. In size it is about as big as a fox, but with very much longer legs; and in general appearance it certainly resembles a half-grown striped hyena. But then its skull and teeth are not at all like those of a hyena; they are like those of a very big mongoose. So the aard-wolf evidently forms a connecting link between the two creatures.

The name aard-wolf means earth-wolf, and has been given to this animal because the Dutch people in South Africa thought that it really was a kind of wolf, and because it lives in deep burrows which it digs in the ground. Strange to say, although each aard-wolf digs its own burrow, several of these tunnels often unite in one large central chamber--a common sitting-room, as it were--which is used by all the animals alike. But each always goes in and out by its own front door.

During the daytime the aard-wolf is nearly always fast asleep underground, so that it is hardly ever seen except by those who go out to hunt it. But it is not often hunted, being so timid and cowardly that when it is turned out of its burrow its only idea is to run away as fast as it possibly can, so that it affords very poor sport.

This animal is not a creature of prey, but feeds chiefly on carrion. But it is rather fond of insects, and will sometimes break a hole in the side of a termites' nest and lick up the inmates by thousands as they come hurrying up to repair the breach in the walls.

HYENAS

These are not very pleasant-looking animals, for their sloping hind quarters give them a very slinking and cowardly appearance. In their habits, too, they are disgusting. Nevertheless they are most useful creatures in the countries in which they live; for they belong to that vast group of animals which we may call "nature's dustmen," because their great work in life is to clear away the rubbish from the world. There are millions upon millions of these natural scavengers, and some of them have to clear away carrion, some to clear away skins, and some to clear away decaying vegetable matter. But the principal duty of the hyenas is to clear away bones, and very thoroughly they do it.

Their jaws and teeth are immensely strong. A hyena will seize the thigh-bone of an ox, and crush it up into splinters as easily as a dog will crush a chicken-bone. And when a lion or a tiger kills a victim, he always leaves a great part of the carcass lying on the ground. Some of it he has no time to eat because the jackals come and steal it while he is fast asleep after the big meal which he always takes as soon as he has killed his victim. Some of it neither he nor the jackals can eat because their teeth are not nearly strong enough to crush the larger bones. So they have to leave these for the hyenas, which come up in numbers to the kill, and quarrel and fight over it, until nothing even of the skeleton remains.

Although the hyena is a much stronger animal than the aard-wolf, it is quite as cowardly, and will hardly ever show fight, even when it is driven to bay. The Arab hunters despise it for its want of courage, and if they find it hiding in a burrow will never condescend to kill it themselves. Neither will they use any weapon against it. They just fling a handful of wet mud into its face, drag it out by its hind feet, and hand it over to be stoned to death by the women. But sometimes, after all, it contrives to escape, for it is so cunning that it will pretend to be dead when it is not really injured, allowing itself to be pulled about, or even to be severely beaten, without moving a limb. Then suddenly, when the attention of its captors is taken off for a moment, it will jump up and run away.

Perhaps you wonder why they should want to kill the hyena if it is such a useful creature and never attacks human beings. The reason is that it is fond of prowling about the outskirts of villages in order to prey upon the cattle. It is much too cowardly to attack them openly, and always tries to frighten them and make them run away, so that it can leap upon them from behind. It generally does this by creeping as close to them as it can, and then springing up suddenly just under their eyes. But if they stand and face it, instead of running away, it just looks at them for a few moments and then slinks off without attempting to touch them.

THE STRIPED HYENA

Three different kinds of these animals are known, the commonest being the striped hyena, which is found in India, Syria, Persia, Arabia, and Northern Africa. It is about as big as a collie dog, and is brownish gray in color, with a number of black stripes running across the body and round the legs. The ears are long and pointed, the tail is big and bushy, and a kind of mane of long hairs runs down the neck and along the middle of the back.

In some parts of Africa these animals roam about by night in large packs, entering the native villages, and searching the streets for the offal which has been thrown out from the huts. And more than once, when very hungry, they have been known to enter a house and carry off a sleeping man.

Sometimes they will set a kind of snare for a dog. One hyena will lie in wait behind a bush, while another will run boldly up to within two or three hundred yards of the village and utter a series of loud howls. A dog is almost sure to hear him and to rush out in pursuit. Then the hyena, pretending to be dreadfully frightened, runs away past the bush where his companion is hiding, and the dog is pounced upon and killed almost before he realizes that he has two enemies to deal with instead of only one.

THE BROWN HYENA

This kind of hyena, found in South Africa, is not nearly so numerous as that just described. It is about the same size as the striped hyena, but may be recognized at once by the great length of its mane, which hangs down on each side below the body. In fact, the animal looks just as if it were wearing a mantle of thick, shaggy fur. It lives chiefly in rocky ground, on the lower slopes of the mountains, but is fond of visiting the sea-shore by night, and prowling about in search of the dead bodies of fishes and other creatures flung up by the waves.

THE SPOTTED HYENA

The tiger-wolf, as the spotted hyena is also called, is much more dangerous than the other hyenas. It is a larger and more powerful animal than either of its relations, and is not near so cowardly. It will enter a sheepfold, or cattle-pen, for instance, under cover of darkness, and boldly attack and carry off one of the animals. But even an unarmed man need not be afraid of it, for though it will come quite close, and will follow him for a long distance, it will never venture to spring upon him.

This animal is often known as the laughing hyena, because of the extraordinary sounds it utters when very much excited. These sounds are not in the least like a yell or a howl, but resemble a peal of strange, unearthly laughter, and while they are being uttered the hyena dances about on its hind legs, nods its head up and down, runs to and fro, and twists itself into all sorts of singular positions, just as though it had suddenly gone mad. Travelers tell us that sometimes for nights together sleep is rendered impossible by the hideous outcry of these creatures, which surround the camp as soon as darkness sets in, and never cease from their horrible din till sunrise.

The spotted hyena is found throughout Southern Africa, and may be known from the other two species by its larger size, and also by the dark-brown spots with which the body and the limbs are marked.