EDENTATA. 145 



from all tlie rest of the genus by having a tooth on each side in the 

 intermaxillary hone. The shell has six or seven hands; its com- 

 partments are smooth, large, and angular; the tail is of a middling 

 length, and annulated only at the base ; there are five toes to each 

 foot. The Pichiy, D'Azzara, would resemble the Encoubert, only 

 that its intermaxillary bone has no teeth, that its posterior shield is 

 denticulated, and that the parts not defended by the shell are fur- 

 nished with longer and more thickly set hairs than the others. A 

 neighbouring species is the Hairy Tatou of Azzara. A third subdi- 

 vision of the Tatous, or the 



Cabassous, Cuv., 



Has five toes to the fore feet, but directed obliquely, so that the thumb 

 and index are slender, and the latter the longest; the middle one has an 

 enormous trenchant nail; the following one has also a nail, but a shorter 

 one, and the last toe is the shortest of all. This form of the fore foot 

 enables these animals to divide the earth, and burrow into it with rapidity, 

 or at any rate to cling to it with such tenacity that it is extremely difficult 

 to tear them from it. They have but eight or nine teeth on each side, 

 and in each jaw. 



Das. unicinctus, L. ; Le Cabas-sou propre, BufF. ; Tatouay, Azz. 

 (The Tatouay of D'Azzara). Has twelve intermediate bands ; the 

 tail long and tuberculous ; the compartments of the bands and shields 

 square, broader than long; five toes every where, of which the four 

 anterior have enormous nails with trenchant external edges. It at- 

 tains a great size. 



Priodontes, Fr. Cuv. 



These, with toes still more unequal, and with nails more enormous than 

 those of the Cabassous, have throughout as many as twenty-two or twen- 

 ty-four small teeth — ninety -four or ninety-six in all. Such is the 



Dasypus gigas, Cuv. ; Tatou geant, Geoff. ; Great Tatou, Azzar. 

 Deuxieme Cabassou, BufF. X. xlv. (The Giant Armadillo). Twelve 

 or thirteen intermediate bands ; the tail long, and covered with tiled 

 scales ; the compartments square, more broad than long. It is the 

 largest of the Tatous, being sometimes more than three feet in length, 

 exclusive of the tail. 

 Finally, we should place after the other Tatous, as a very distinct sub- 

 genus, the Clamyphores. 



Clamypiiorus, Harl., 



Which have ten teeth throughout, and five toes to each foot; the nails of 

 the fore feet very large, crooked, and compressed, furnishing, as in the 

 Cabassous, a powerfully trenchant instrument. The back is covered with 

 a suite of transverse rows of scaly plates, without any solid shell before or 

 behind, forming a sort of cuira which is only attached to the body along 

 the spine. The hinder part of the body is truncated, and their curved 



there are even among the insects, some which seem to liave received the faculty of 

 judging and of discriminating in a higher degree than this animal.— Eng. Ed. 

 VOL. I. I- 



