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.