THE DOCILE MAMMALS. 



239 



provided, the ant-eater burrows into ant-holes, thrusts its 

 tongue among the swarming ants, which stick in multi- 

 tudes to the viscid, writhing rod, and are withdrawn into the 

 mouth. But how will the ants be crushed so as to be 

 readily digested ? Nature has made up for the loss of teeth 

 in the ant-eater by providing it with a sort of gizzard, like 

 that of birds, between whose walls the ants are crushed to 

 a jelly. The great ant-eater is seven feet long, and when 

 attacked by a panther or jaguar is, with its powerful claws, 

 sometimes more than a match for its assailants. 



Very curious creatures are the pangolins and armadillos. 



FIG. 238. African Pangolin (Manis longicaudata) robbing white-ant nests. 



They are mail-clad insect-eaters, whose bodies, and even 

 their heads and tails, are covered with large, solid overlap- 

 ping scales. They have back teeth, but, as in the sloth, 

 they do not have a second set. Though the armadillos live 

 on the plains of South America, where panthers and jaguars 

 are frequent, they escape their assaults by rolling them- 

 selves into a round ball, leaving no place open to attack. 



According to Herbert Smith, the armadillos in Southern 

 Brazil burrow in the grass of the plains, and the smaller 

 species tear open the high conical nests of the white ants. 

 " These nests are almost as hard as brick ; the bones and 



