TANREC AND TUPAIA 



who handles the Centetes incautiously. It is really not 

 far inferior to the hedgehog in spininess. In young 

 stages it has definite bands of long spines down the body. 

 Spines of course are a common feature of the whole race 

 of insectivorous animals. They have, too, sharp teeth 

 and well-developed canines. The bite of Centetes is a 

 serious matter. It feeds upon earthworms chiefly. The 

 Tendrec, Tanrec or Tenrec, as its various native aliases 

 run, is one of the most prolific of mammals. It is said 

 to produce twenty- one young at a birth. It has no tail 

 and a very small brain, so small, indeed, that it is no 

 larger in comparison to the skull than the extremely 

 minute brains of certain extinct animals of the dim past 

 belonging to quite other groups, and whose disappear- 

 ance is perhaps partly to be explained by their lack of 

 cunning. Measured by this standard the Tenrec is not 

 long for this world. Few insectivores are to be seen at 

 the Zoo. They do not readily lend themselves to cap- 

 tivity. It is clear that moles and shrews are not suit- 

 able exhibits. The Tupaia, however, a Malayan insec- 

 tivora that seems to mimic a squirrel, is one of the few 

 types that has been at the Zoo. 



ORDER EDENTATA 



This is a heterogeneous assemblage of peculiarly weird- 

 looking beasts of doubtful relations to other mammals, 

 and indeed to each other. Though it is plain enough 

 from anatomical considerations, and from the analysis 

 of extinct forms, that the sloth, American anteaters, and 

 armadillos, form a closely related assemblage, it is not at 

 all plain that these have any relation whatever to the 

 Manis and the Orycteropus of the Old World, or that the 

 two latter are in any way related to each other. Why 

 then, it may fairly be asked, are all those creatures placed 

 in one order, Edentata. The reasons in truth are of a 

 negative character, and are simply an expression of the 



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