THE AARD-VARK OR EARTH-HOG. 575 



with arched back, like a pig, which animal it further resembles in that 

 its skin is sparsely strewed with hairs. But its very long ears, instead 

 of being pendent like those of the pig, rise like horns on both sides of 

 the head ; neither is the tail slender or twisted into a corkscrew curl ; 

 on the contrary, it is of conical shape and very thick at the base. 

 Finally, the rather elongated head, terminating in a regular snout, has 

 at its extremity a buccal opening rather larger than in the ant-eater, 

 but yet far smaller than in swine. The teeth, numbering five or six 

 pairs in the lower jaw and six or seven in the upper, increase in size 

 from the first to the one before the last on each side. Their structure 

 is peculiar, being far less dense than in most Mammalia, and having no 

 coating of enamel. The grinding surface is flattened, and the single 

 root is pierced with a number of holes in its periphery. The slender, 

 protractile tongue is, as in nearly all of the Edentata, covered with a 

 viscous substance designed to secure the small insects on which the ani- 

 mal lives. The short, heavy feet terminate, the anterior in four digits, 

 the posterior in five, all armed with strong, hoof -like claws. In the pos- 

 terior feet, as in the anterior, the external lateral digits are a little 

 shorter than the others. 



The family Orycteropidm comprises only a single genus, in which 

 we can, not without much difficulty, distinguish three species, viz. : the 

 Cape orycteropus or earth-hog, the one first known ; the orycteropus 

 of Senegambia, described by Lesson ; and the orycteropus of Ethiopia, 

 studied by D'Abbadie and D'Arnaud on the banks of the White Nile. 

 These three species are identical in their habits, of nearly the same size, 

 1'3 metre (about h\ feet) from the snout to the extremity of the skin, 

 and of the same general form ; they differ only in the proportions of 

 the cranium and of the limbs, and in the color and appearance of the 

 skin. Thus, in the Cape orycteropus, for instance, the surface of the 

 body presents a scanty covering of straight, soft hairs, which are shorter 

 on the back than on the belly. In the orycteropus of Ethiopia, on the 

 other hand, the skin is almost perfectly nude, with merely a few strag- 

 gling, brownish hairs on the ears, the tail, and the base of the limbs. 

 To this species belongs the individual recently acquired for the Jardin 

 des Plantes, and of which our figure is a faithful portrait. It will be 

 seen that the body is swollen like a full skin-bottle, and furrowed with 

 creases which radiate from the abdominal region between the paws. 

 The latter are of enormous size, and the tail, which is soft and flabby, 

 falls to the ground by its own weight. The general appearance of the 

 animal is at once mean and grotesque. Looked at from behind, it re- 

 sembles a bag, the long ears projecting on each side being the ends of 

 the string by which the mouth of the bag is tied. 



This orycteropus lives in pairs in the plains of Kordofan, where it is 

 called by the Arabs ahuclelatif, i. e., "the father that owns claws." In 

 the daytime it lies hidden and doubled up in a deep hole, which it digs in 

 the loose soil of the plain by means of its broad, sharp claws. Toward 



