MANIS. 215 



curled, and silky ; the general colour is delicate golden 

 straw, with a brownish mark on the back, often wanting. 

 Length of head and body, ten inches ; of the tail, ten 

 inches and a half. (Fig. 142.) 



The little ant-eater is a native of Guiana and Brazil, 

 where it tenants the forests, suspending itself by its 

 long tail, as well as clinging by means of its claws : it 

 searches for insects among the fissures of the bark, and 

 attacks the nests of wasps, the nymphse of which it pulls 

 out with its fore-claws or nippers, and eats them while it 

 sits up like a squirrel. In defending themselves, these 

 animals strike with both the fore-paws at once, and with 

 considerable force. In their habits they are nocturnal, 

 sleeping with the tail twisted round their perch. They 

 utter no cry. The female is said to breed in the hollows 

 of trees, making a bed of leaves, and producing one only 

 at a birth. There is a pale variety, regarded by some 

 as a distinct species. 



Genus Manis. 



The American Ant-eaters are represented in India 

 and Africa by the Pangolins, or Scaly Ant-eaters, which 

 constitute the genus Manis of Linnaeus. These singular 

 animals may at once be known by the armour of dense 

 horny scales, or triangular plates, overlapping each other, 

 by which every part of the body, except the middle line 

 "^of the under surface, is completely invested. The body 

 is depressed, rounded above, long and low ; the head is 

 small and conical, the eyes are minute, there are no ex- 

 ternal ears, the mouth is small, and the tongue long and 

 extensible ; the tail is long and broad, and covered above 

 and below with hard imbricated scales ; the limbs are 

 very short and thick, and mailed like the rest of the 

 body ; no distinct toes are apparent beyond the claws, 

 which on the fore -feet are five in number, the three 

 central ones being of enormous size, arched, thick, and 

 bluntly pointed. The first and the last claw are very 

 small. The large claws fold down on a thick coarse pad, 

 as in the ant-eater, and the mode of progression in both 

 cases is the same. The hind-feet have five short, thick, 



