Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/338

318 fifteen or twenty perceptible distinctions could be made, and a place found for every degree of merit and demerit. Because a person does not stand high in our esteem, it does not follow that we are punishing or persecuting him; the point when punishment in any proper sense could be said to begin would be about the middle of the scale. Mill remarks justly: "If anyone displeases us, we may express our distaste and stand aloof from such an one; but we shall not therefore feel called on to make his life uncomfortable," still less to send him to prison or to the stake.

 

S company for the monkeys and myself, for many years past, I have had a "Jemmy." All my Suricates I call "Jemmys." The Latin name is Suricata Zenick. Jemmy is a very pretty little beast, somewhat like a small mongoose or very large rat. His head is as like the head of a hedgehog as can be imagined. His color is light brown, with darker stripe down the sides. He is an African animal, and lives in burrows on the plains, whence he is sometimes called the African prairie-dog, or the meercatze. Captain Adams tells me that, when in South Africa, he has frequently come across a camp of Jemmys. The plain will appear covered with them, sitting up motionless like so many ninepins; at the least notice, they simultaneously and in an instant disappear down their holes.



I would like now to say something of the habits of this pretty little fellow, which was kindly given to me by Mr. Forbes Nixon. Jemmy the Third (for I have previously had two Jemmys) was allowed the free range of the whole house. He was full of curiosity and 