196 



ARMADILLO, 



deprived of their acrimony and become agreeable 

 and important articles of food. The leaves of the 

 first-mentioned species, when cultivated and duly 

 prepared, are employed as a potherb. The root of 

 the Arum campanalatum, which often weighs from 

 four te eight pounds, is cultivated as the potato is in 

 this country, and as the yams in the West Indies. 

 It is said that milk in which the root of the Arum 

 trvphyUum has been boiled is useful in consumptive 

 cases. 



The different species of Caladium, a genus belong- 

 ing to this family, invest the trees in the tropical 

 forests, and from their colour and form constitute a 

 striking feature among the plants of those regions. 

 Some of them are stemless, while others have long 

 climbing stems from which thick roots arise. They 

 all furnish an acrid juice. The Caladium scguinum has 

 the property, when chewed, of causing the tongue to 

 swell so as to impede speech. On this account it is 

 called in the West Indies dumb-cane. The Cala- 

 dium fragranlissimum, a native of Deuierara, diffuses 

 in its recent state a most powerful and delicious 

 odour. 



The Calla Ethiopica, a plant included under the 

 aroideae, is commonly cultivated in green-houses and 

 drawing-rooms on account of the beauty of its flower. 

 The Calla palustris is found in the northern parts of 

 Europe, and inhabits the deep stagnant and frozen 

 marshes of Lapland. The fresh leaves of the Calla per- 

 tusa&re used in Demerara as blisters and rubefacients 

 for the cure of dropsy. The root of the Dracontium 

 polyphyllum possesses antispasmodic virtues. The root 

 and seeds of the Symplocarpus foetid us, skunk weed or 

 skunk cabbage, a plant found in Canada, and very 

 abundant in the meadows and swamps of the United 

 States, are used in asthma,catarrh, and chronic coughs. 

 The flowers of this plant appear before the leaves, and 

 are so unlike a vegetable production that a person 

 at first sight would take them for something artificial, 

 or for a shell of the cypraea tribe. Their very fetid 

 smell, however, on a near approach, soon dissipates 

 the delusion. 



The Acorus calamus, common sweet flag, is another 

 interesting plant belonging to the aroideae. This 

 plant is found in watery places in the south-eastern 

 counties of England. It has an aromatic root or 

 chizoma, known in commerce under the name of 

 Calamus aromaticus. It is stimulant, carminative, 

 and stomachic, and is frequently administered in 

 intermittent fevers and in gout. After being blanched 

 it is mixed with sugar and used in Constantinople as 

 a preventive against epidemic diseases. From its 

 agreeable odour the plant is used for garlands, and is 

 strewed on the floor of the cathedral at Norwich on 

 festival days. 



Some of the plants belonging to this order pos- 

 sess a peculiar property of evolving heat at a certain 

 period of their growth. This has been particularly 

 observed in the Arum maculatum and italicum at the 

 time when the sheath opens. The heat has been 

 observed to be 7 above the temperature of the sur- 

 sounding air. The rise in temperature begins at 

 three or four o'clock in the afternoon, attains its m'ax- 

 imum at six or eight, and finally ceases at ten or 

 eleven at night. During the evolution of heat the 

 spadix becomes of a black colour. 



ARMADILLO. The name given by the Span- 

 iards to a very singular genus of mammalia, which 

 are found only in South America, and chiefly in the 

 woods or on the plains of Paraguay, or otherwise in 



the great valley of La Plata. They are animals of 

 many names, as well as many peculiarities. The 

 name armadillo, which in England has become the 

 common name of the genus, means " clad in armour." 

 The name encuberto, by which they are known to 

 the Portuguese, has nearly the same moaning ; and 

 they apply it indiscriminately to the whole genus, 

 though in Europe it is often used as denoting only 

 one particular species. Tatou is the name given to 

 them by the natives of Brazil, and has been adopted 

 by D'Azzara, the Spanish naturalist, to whom we are 

 indebted for the best account of them in their native 

 localities. The generic name bestowed upon them 

 by Linnaeus, and still retained by the majority of 

 systematic writers, is dost/pus (hairy foot), which is one 

 of the old Greek names for the hare or rabbit, and cer- 

 tainly as little descriptive of the armadillos as can 

 well be imagined ; but it has the sanction of custom, 

 and therefore it is not, perhaps, worth while to 

 change it for a better one, the more so that the cha- 

 racters of the animals are so striking, that there is no 

 danger of confounding them with any others. Uast/- 

 pus may also mean " thick foot," or " foot closely 

 put together ; " but though that is true of the arma- 

 dillos, it is not more descriptive of them than of many 

 other animals. 



Their most obvious and striking characteristic is 

 the armour, or shield, or shell, or whatever else it 

 may be called, with which the upper part of their 

 bodies is covered, and from which they get the 

 Spanish name that has been adopted as their English 

 one. This covering, taken all together, has a very 

 considerable resemblance to plate armour. It con- 

 sists of a great number of transverse bands or seg- 

 ments, marked with a succession of studs. These 

 bands are, in some instances, that is, on some parts 

 of the body, completely united into broad bucklers, 

 each consisting of a single piece, and moveable only 

 as a whole, whatever may be the apparent number of 

 bands of which it is made up. Of these broad pieces 

 there are three ; the first covering the upper part of 

 the head, as a sort of helmet ; the second, which is 

 much larger, covering the neck, shoulders, and more 

 or less of the back ; and the third covering the croup 

 from the loins to the tail : between the second and 

 third of these there is a variable number of smaller 

 pieces, united by skin but admitting of very little 

 motion. The number of these intermediate and 

 slightly moveable bands, has been popularly made 

 the foundation of specific distinctions ; but it is by 

 no means well adapted for such a purpose, as the 

 number often varies in the same species, and is often 

 the same in different species. 



No complete set of observations on the progress of 

 this curious covering during its growth has been 

 made ; and therefore it is impossible to say that each 

 transverse band both of the larger and of the interme- 

 diate plates is formed separately, with skin intermediate 

 until it is full grown. But this is probable, inasmuch 

 as the anchylosis or immoveable adhesion of these 

 bands together, does not always take place at the 

 same . age in the same species ; and it is probable, 

 though even that has not been carefully observed, 

 that the skin between the several plates, or the joints 

 of the armour, as we might say, stiffen and approxi- 

 mate to anchyloses as the animal advances in age. 



The plate on the head, or helmet, is much narrower 

 than those on the body. It commences not at, but 

 generally near, the muzzle, and passes towards the 

 occiput in such a manner as partially to shadow the 



