T11E REASON WHY: 



You mi<?ht have seen them throng out of the town, 



Like ants when they do spoil the bing of corne, 



For winter's dred, which they beare to their den." SURREY. 



burrow ; and the armour holds like a screw by means of its 

 transverse prominences.* 



There are other points of adaptability worthy of observation. 

 The head is sharp and wedge-like, the eyes are small, and, in some 

 of the species, covered with a membrane which can be put in use 

 while the animal is burrowing, and so covered and protected. 



418. How are the armadillos, being unprovided with extensile 

 tongues, able to capture ants, upon which they partly subsist? 



As the structure of the tongues of armadillos is not so well 

 calculated for the capture of ants as those of the true ant-eaters, 

 they do not devour these insects in such numbers ; but they are 

 said to exterminate them more speedily and completely from 

 places where they abound. They effect this by mining obliquely 

 into the ant-hills in all directions, and especially by digging 

 down to those places where the chrysalids of the young ants 

 are collected. 



The holes which they make are also too deep and large to be 

 easily filled up by the ants ; and as they admit water to the very 

 lowest inhabited part of the hill, the ants are- either driven out, or 

 drowned the first rain that falls. 



419. Why has the number of armadillos increased in the vicinity 

 of colonies, while that of other wild animals has decreased? 



Because, as well as eating insects and roots, armadillos devour 

 the carcases of animals. In the neighbourhood of colonies 

 a great many wild animals are killed for their skins, and the 

 increase of the number of carcases thus promotes the increase of 

 the number of armadillos, who act as scavengers to the field* 

 of slaughter. 



* Partington's "Cyclopaedia." 



