164 MAMMALIA. 



shell are furnished with longer and more thickly set hairs. A 

 neighbouring species is the Hairy Tatou of Azzara. A third 

 subdivision of the Tatous, or the 



Cabassous, Cuv., 



Has five toes to the fore feet, but directed obliquely, so that the 

 thumb and index are slender, and the latter the longest; the middle 

 one has an enormous trenchant nail; the following one has also a 

 nail, but a shorter one, and the last toe is the shortest of all. This 

 form of the foot enables these animals to divide the earth, and bur- 

 row into it with rapidity, or at any rate to cling to it with such 

 tenacity that it is extremely difficult to tear them from it. They 

 have but eight or nine teeth on each side, and in each jaw. 



Das. unicinctus, L. ; Le Cabassou pr'ojyre, Buff,; Talouay, Azz. 

 (The Tatouay.) Twelve intermediate bands ; the tail long and 

 tuberculous ; the compartments of the bands and shields 

 square, broader than long ; five toes every where, of which the 

 four anterior have enormous nails with trenchant external 

 edges. It attains a great size. 



Priodon, Fr. Cuv. 



The toes more unequal, and the nails more enormous than in the 

 preceding subgenus ; twenty-two to twenty-four small teeth through- 

 out, or ninety-four or ninety-six in all. Such is the 



Dasypus gigas, Cuv.; Tatou geant, Geoff. ; Great Tatou, Azzar.; 

 Beiixieme CabassoUjBuK. X,xlv. (The Giant Armadillo.) Twelve 

 or thirteen intermediate bands ; the tail long, and covered with 

 tiled scales ; the compartments square, more broad than long. 

 It is the largest of the Tatous, being sometimes more than three 

 feet in length, exclusive of the tail. 

 Finally, we should place after the Tatous, as a very distinct sub- 

 genus, the 



Clamyphorus, Harl., 



Which has ten teeth throughout, and five toes to each foot ; the 

 nails of the fore feet very large, crooked and compressed, furnishing, 

 as in the Cabassous, a powerfully trenchant instrument. The back 

 is covered with a suite of transverse rows of scaly plates, without 

 any solid shell before or behind, forming a sort of hauberk which is 

 only connected with the body along the spine. The hinder part of 

 the body is truncated, and their curved tail partially attached to the 

 under part of the body.(l). One species only is known, the 



(1) We only know this animal by the description of Dr Harlan, Ann. of the New 

 York Lye. 1, p. 235 and pi. xxi. 



