356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fat. The flesh of the animal is highly prized by the natives, but 

 its rank flavor generally repels other residents. It is usually 

 placed upon the table roasted whole, as we prepare a young pig.' 



On many of the dry and barren plains of Central America the 

 armadillo is the only mammal. There, like the Florida gopher, 

 it shares its burrow with a fellow-tenant, the deadly rattlesnake, 

 which it does not seem to dread in the least. The snake, on the 

 other hand, though it could easily insert its fangs into the arma- 

 dillo's skin between its bands and plates of armor, seems to know 

 better than to harm its good-natured landlord. Wild creatures 

 often seem thus to tolerate one another's presence, and even to 

 have a friendly understanding which man can not fully compre- 

 hend. 



The various species of living armadillos differ in the number 

 of movable bands of armor, and are named accordingly. The com- 

 mon species of Central America, Mexico, and southern Texas is 

 the nine-banded armadillo (Tatusia novemcincta). My pets, 

 Jack and Jill, belong to the South American species {Dasypus 

 sexcinctus), and my description of them will therefore apply to 

 the six-banded armadillo in general. 



The two sexes resemble each other closely in size, structure, 

 and outline. The total length of both Jack and Jill is nineteen 

 inches, including the tail, which is six inches. The girth of the 

 body is twelve inches, and it is plump and rounded like that 

 of a puppy or young pig. When the legs are straightened, as in 

 walking, the highest part of the back is six inches from the 

 ground. 



The head, three inches and a half in length and conical in 

 shape, is covered above with a single plate of armor which ex- 

 tends on the sides to the eyebrows and lengthwise from a point 

 three quarters of an inch from the end of the nose to a line drawn 

 between the ears. Next behind the ears is a movable transverse 

 band of armor nearly three fourths of an inch in width, separated 

 from the head plate in front of it and from the next band behind 

 it by a narrow space of chocolate-colored, rough, wrinkled, and 

 pliable skin. Following this is another plate over the shoulders, 

 two inches in width at the top, and gradually widening as it ex- 

 tends downward to the neck under the ears. 



Now follow one after another the six movable bands from 

 which this species is named. They are all alike, each three 

 fourths of an inch in width, and separated from one another by 

 similar spaces of leathery skin, as above described. Behind these 

 six bands is the posterior plate, four inches wide and ending at 

 the roots of the tail. The tapering tail has four movable bands, 

 followed by a continuous plate extending to the tip. 



Besides the armor thus described as protecting the head, bacl- , 



