EDENTATA. 167 



with large trenchant scales arranged like tiles, which they elevate 

 in rolling themselves into a ball, when they wish to defend them- 

 selves from an enemy. There are five toes to each foot. Their 

 stomach is slightly divided in the middle, and there is no csecum. 

 They are confined to the eastern continent. 



M. pentadactyla, L. ; M. hrachyura, Erxl.; Buff. X, xxxiv. 

 (The Short-tailed Pangolin.) Three or four feet long ; the tail 

 shorter than the body. From the East Indies. It is thQ P hat - 

 tagen of ^lian, lib. xvi, cap. vi. 



M. tetradactyla, L.j M. macroura, ErxL; Phatagin, Buff. X, 

 xxxiv. (The Long-tailed Pangolin.) Three or four feet in 

 length ; the tail double that of the body, and the scales armed 

 with points. From Senegal, Guinea, 8cc.(l) 



The third tribe of the Edentata comprehends those animals, 

 designated by M. Geoffroy, under the name of 



MONOTREMATA. 



So called, because they have only one external opening for 

 the seminal fluid, urine and other excrements. Their organs 

 of generation present extraordinary anomalies ; for though they 

 have no pouch under the belly, their pubis is furnished with 

 the same supernumerary bones as the Marsupialia ; the vasa 

 deferentia terminate in the urethra which opens into the 

 cloaca ; the penis, when at rest, is drawn into a sheath, which 

 opens by a hole near the bottom of the cloaca. The only 

 matrix consists of two canals or trunks, each of which opens 

 separately and by a double orifice into the urethra, which is 

 very large and terminates in the cloaca. As naturalists have 

 not yet agreed as to the existence of their mammse;(2) 

 whether they are oviparous or viviparous remains to be 

 ascertained. (3) The singularities of their skeleton are not 



(1) We have verified the habitat of the Long-tailed Pangolin, by the statement 

 of M. Adanson and other travellers. 



(2) M. Meckel considei's as such two glandular masses he found greatly de- 

 veloped in a female Ornithorhynchus. M. Geoffrey thinks they are rather glands, 

 analoerous'to those on the flanks of the Shrews. 



O 



(3) Travellers have lately asserted, that it has been ascertained that these ani- 

 mals produce eggs. Sliould tliis prove to be the case, the Monotremata must, in 

 some sort, be considered as a separate class of animals ; but it is to be wished that 

 some able anatomist would exactly describe these eggs, their internal origin, and 

 their development after being produced. We must expect it from some one 



