Ant-Eaters. 45 



for example, to the water in the crocodiles' pond 

 being generally covered with floating nuts and 

 pieces of sodden bread and buns. 



The Great Ant-Eater (Myrmecophaga jubata) is 

 far too well known to need any detailed description 

 here. It is a most uncanny-looking creature ; its 

 curious little head, with small eyes and ears, and 

 extraordinarily long snout ending in a diminutive 

 mouth ; its great fore-limbs armed with enormous 

 claws, which it carries folded in upon its palms ; and 

 its huge, bushy tail giving it an odd appearance 

 of being out of all proportion. This odd appear- 

 ance, indeed, no doubt gave rise to the extra- 

 ordinary stories that were told of it by the earlier 

 travellers and writers such, for example, as that 

 it was in the habit of climbing trees in search of its 

 food, a story which aroused the wrath of the late 

 Charles Waterton, who attacked both the story and 

 its authors with his usual fierceness. The author 

 also strongly objected to "the remark that the 

 long visage of this most singular quadruped is out 

 of proportion and unsightly," stating that he 

 " considered it to be quite in unison with the rest 

 of the body, and admirably adapted to the support 

 of life ; " adding, " What could the ant-bear do 

 without its tremendous claws, and cylinder-shaped 

 snout, so tough as to enable it to perforate huge 

 nests of ants, which in certain districts of Southern 

 America appear more like the roofs of Chinese 

 temples than the work and habitations of insignifi- 

 cant little insects ? " The ant-eater's method of 



