194 SKELETON OF THE MOLE. 



big enongh to let the vermiform tongue glide easily in 

 and out. Tlie fore-limbs are remarkable for the great 

 size and strength of the claw developed from the middle 

 digit : this is the instrument by which the ant-eater mainly 

 effects the breach in the walls of the termite fortresses, 

 which it habitually besieges in order to prey upon their 

 inhabitants and constructors. As in the sloths, both fore 

 and hind feet have an inclination inwards, whereby the 

 sharp ends of the long claws are prevented from being 

 worn by that constant application to the ground which 

 must have resulted from the ordinary position of the foot. 

 The trunk-vertebra) of the ant-eater are chiefly remark- 

 able for the number of accessory joints by which they 

 are articulated together. This complex structure is also 

 met with in the armadillos, in Avhich the anterior zygapo- 

 physes of the dorsal vertebrae send processes — the meta- 

 pophyses (Fig. 2, p. 165), tt?, m — upwards, outwards, and 

 forwards, which processes, progressively increasing in the 

 hinder vertebrae, attain, in the lumbar region, a length 

 equal to that of the spinous processes, ns^ and have the 

 same relation to them, in the support of the osseous cara- 

 pace, as the "tie-bearers" have to the "king-post" in the 

 architecture of a roof. 



SKELETON OF THE MOLE. 



The mole is hardly less fitted for the actions of an or- 

 dinary land-quadruped than the sloth ; but the one is as 

 admirably constructed for subterraneous as the other 

 for arboreal life. The fore-limbs are remarkably short, 

 broad, and massive in the mole, as they are long and 

 slender in the sloth ; yet the same osseous elements, 



