THE GREAT ANTEATER 203 



in the London market is said to be only about five 

 shillings. 



The tamanoir seems to have first been made known 

 to Europeans by John de Laet, who, in his ponderous 

 work on the New World, published in 1663, notices 

 the animal {Noviis Orbis, chap. 5, Book XV.). Piso 

 ("De Indise utriusque re naturali et medica." folio, 

 Amsterdam 1658, Chap, xxii.) describes the tamanoir 

 as the " Tamandua gua9u sive major," giving a 

 fairly accurate figure of it feeding on ants with 

 protruded tongue; the claws of the right foot are 

 shown correctly turned in. The tamanoir and the 

 dodo figure in the frontispiece to this work! The first 

 living anteater sent to Europe was probably the 

 animal which was kept at Madrid in 1776, and after- 

 wards stuffed for the Royal Cabinet of Natural 

 History at Madrid, where it still remained, in 

 excellent preservation, in 1792. A fine example 

 (fully adult judging from the measurements pub- 

 lished by Pennant) was preserved in the famous 

 museum of Sir Ashton Lever. At the sale of the 

 collection it figured as lot 2300 " An extremely large 

 and fine specimen of the Great Anteater of South 

 America, Myrmecophaga jubata'' and was disposed 

 of on May 27, 1806, for ^12. This may have been 

 the specimen obtained by Mr. Bullock for his private 

 museum and afterwards acquired in 18 19 for the 

 National Collection. It is doubtful whether the 

 great anteater was ever kept in Lord Derby's 



