Page:Animal life and the world of nature - Notes and Comments - Alice Foljambe - 1903-06.pdf/1



, whose original painting of her pet squirrel is reproduced as a frontispiece to this number, has also supplied us with the following notes and the accompanying illustrations: "The Ground, or Fan-tailed Squirrel is a native of South Africa, where it lives in holes which it scoops out among the rocks. The specimen in my possession was caught near Kroonstad, in the Orange River Colony, and I have had him since last July.



His length, from the nose to the tip of the tail, is eighteen inches, of which the tail occupies one-half. Its head is like a marmot's, the ears being externally mere slits; but the stripes on its side remind one of the ground squirrel of North America. The eyes are large and black, the head and upper parts reddish-brown, slightly tinged with grey. There is a white stripe on each side, extending from the shoulder to the thigh, below which is a broad streak of chestnut fading into cream on the under-parts, where the fur is longer and softer than above, it being somewhat harsh and scanty on the rest of the body. But its chief glory is its tail. Reddish at the base, it becomes greyer towards the tip. The outside edge is creamy white, then comes a band of black, specially broad and deep at the tip, and the centre is beautifully variegated with black, reddish and white.



When asleep the tail is curled round over the head; when running it is usually kept carefully off the ground. Sometimes it is arched over the back somewhat after the fashion of our English squirrel, and it can be curled over, with every hair erect, in a peculiar manner which irresistibly reminds the spectator of a fan, whence its popular name. This beautiful appendage is most carefully looked after, being taken in the two front paws and thoroughly cleaned from end to end.



'Jacky,' or to give him his full name, 'John Vanderpomp,' is a most affectionate little animal, gentle as a pet dog to his mistress, and will allow himself to be pulled about and played with, without any attempt to use his teeth, which, as I know from former experience, are pretty sharp. He lives in a large tin-lined cage with a wire run 3 feet long by 1½ feet wide; it is built on wheels, and has even then to be raised off the ground if the latter be at all moist, as, though he does not require any great heat, being accustomed to so dry a climate the slightest