THE GREAT ANTEATER 205 



house, it became the rage of London ; quite early in 

 the day crowds of visitors could be seen streaming- 

 towards the anteater house, and even standing en 

 queue at the door. The Press devoted considerable 

 attention to it. Household Words for Oct. 15th, 

 1853 (edited by Charles Dickens), contained an 

 article on the "Brazilian in Bloomsbury;" and Punch 

 published a long, amusing, and really very able 

 article on "The Fashionable Zoological Star." A 

 female anteater was also obtained for the collection 

 about this time. On November 14, 1865, the first 

 living anteater seen in France died from the 

 combined effects of pleurisy and pericarditis ; M. 

 Pouchet, who afterwards dissected it, states that the 

 pericardial sac contained a tumblerful of effused 

 serum. 



A remarkable fact was noticed in the domestic 

 economy of these captives. Although supposed 

 to live on ants, these strange creatures in confine- 

 ment absolutely refused to touch them ! ^ The 

 classical specimen kept at Madrid was maintained 

 on a daily ration of four or five pounds of raw 

 minced meat ; those in London subsisted on 

 a Quixotic diet of animal and vegetable substances 

 mashed into a pulp. The tamanoir will take 

 fruit or — horribile dictu — a dead mouse ; yet it 



1 Mr. Broderip has suggested that the animals disliked the formic 

 acid contained in tlie true ants witli which tliey were supplied, the 

 termites, or "white ants" of their native forests being very ditterent 

 insects. 



