ANT-EATING ANIMALS 



THE AUSTRALIA ANT-EATER 



This animal is undoubtedly Australian and is also 

 an eater of ants, and yet the name seems ill chosen, for 

 it suggests a comparison with the ant-eaters of America 

 and of the Old World. Echidna has nothing whatever 

 to do with those Edentates since it belongs to a quite 

 different order whose general characters have been 

 sketched out. Of Echidna aculeata there is as a rule, 

 or at least often, a specimen to be seen at the Zoo. Its 

 general characters mark it out as distinct from any other 

 mammal, from which indeed it can readily be differen- 

 tiated without having recourse to its skeleton. The 

 long and toothless snout recalls the Myrmecophaga and 

 the Old World Manis ; and a long and viscid tongue 

 protrudes itself in the same way from these toothless 

 jaws. But the body is covered with a dense covering 

 of sharp spines, mingled with hairs, in a fashion more 

 like that of the hedgehog than of any other mammal. 

 The ways of the Echidna, when in search of termites, 

 are much those of its ant-eating representatives in other 

 countries. Its stout claws are able to make a breach 

 in the walls of the fortress manned by the ants, and 

 into this breach it thrusts its long tongue and waits 

 until the exploratory and indignant ants have limed 

 themselves thereon. In default of ants the Echidna 

 will put up with worms, and larvae, which it extracts 

 by means of the same long and thin tongue, which can 

 be inserted into crevices and can draw therefrom the 

 lurking insect. Nature has tempered the wind to this 

 exceedingly unshorn lamb by endowing it with a 

 nocturnal way of life, and with a liking for concealment 

 in thick scrub. But even this does not entirely free it 

 from persecution. For in spite of its spines the thyla- 

 cine, as we have already said, has been known to swallow 

 a spiny ant-eater whole, just as the leopard in India 

 will grapple with the equally spiny porcupine. The 



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