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Young Kingdom: I, like many other veteran travelers, can well remember traveling in Serbia when it was a young kingdom, freed only a few decades earlier from five centuries of Ottoman Turkish bondage, in Dalmatia when it was a crown land of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Montenegro when it was an independent principality.
Gestation takes 16 days; 7-15 in litter; young born pink, naked, and blind. Do not disturb young or mother for at least a week after birth; if disturbed mother will either kill and eat the young or neglect them and allow them to die. After 3 weeks, remove young from mother; otherwise, mother fights with them and often kills them. Sexes should be separated before young reach maturity at 43 days.
8. It should be kept in mind that most animals will bite or try to bite when frightened. It is a wise precaution to wear heavy gloves when picking up animals that are of uncertain temper or unused to being handled. There is no point at all in handling venomous animals, such as black-widow spiders, centipedes, or scorpions. The snakes mentioned in this volume are nonpoisonous, but they can inflict an unpleasant bite. Many species become quite docile after getting accustomed to a home terrarium. Still, anybody who handles a wild animal does so at his own risk.
THE members of the class of mammals differ from all other classes in the animal kingdom in that the young are nourished on milk produced by the mother's mammary glands. The young are usually born fully formed; and the majority of them are covered with hair or fur; all are warm-blooded.
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