178 ARMADILLOS AND SNAKES CHAP. 
Mr. W. H. Hudson has described the way in which this Armadillo 
will kill a snake by holding it down and literally sawing the 
reptile in half by help of the sharp and serrated edges of the 
carapace. Dasypus has a very short tail, which is shielded by 
distinct rings near the base. | 
Tatusia novemeincta 18 a species with nine movable bands. 
The genus has four teats; the ears are near together. There are 
no caeca and no azygos lobe to the lung. A species apparently 
belonging to this genus, but described under the generic names of 
Cryptophractus and Praopus, is remarkable for the thick covering 
of hair, not entirely wanting but usually thin in other Armadillos. 
In this particular species the coat of hair is so thick as to 
conceal the underlying plates of the carapace. The individual 
hairs are stiff, and one inch and a half in length.! 
The genus Yenurus contains several species, the best known of 
which is inaptly named 1. wnicinctus. As a matter of fact the 
characteristic feature of the genus is the existence of twelve 
or thirteen movable plates between the two ends of the body. 
X. unicinctus has twelve dorsal and three lumbar vertebrae. This 
Armadillo, known by the vernacular name of the Cabassou, has one 
of the most modified hands that are found in the family. The first 
two digits are slender and elongated; but are quite normal in the 
number of their phalanges. In the remaining three digits the 
metacarpal is short and broad, while the proximal phalanx is 
either suppressed altogether or fused with the metacarpal, the 
middle phalanx is present but short, while the third phalanx is very 
large indeed. As in Dasypus, but not as in Vatusia, which 1s in 
so many other respects divergent from these genera, the lungs 
have an azygos lobe. As a small point of difference, tending to 
show an alhance between the genera Yenuwrus and Dasypus 
and their difference from Zatusia, is the deeply-imbedded gall- 
bladder ; this sac is not nearly so deeply plunged into the hepatic 
tissue in Tatusia. Xenurus has no caecal dilatations. The 
brain “is intermediate in its form and surface markings between 
Dasypus and Tolypeutes.’ The small intestine is nearly eighteen 
times the length of the large. But these intestinal measurements 
are not of much avail in this group as marks of affinity, since in 
three species of Dasypus Garrod gives the following widely- 
divergent lengths :—D, villosus, 11:5 feet and 1:25; D. minutus 
' Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1886, p. 419. 
