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A R M A D I L L O. 



animals. As the structure of their tongues is not so | 

 well calculated for the capture of auts as those of 

 the ant-eaters, they <lo not devour these insects in 

 such numbers ; but they are said to exterminate 

 them much 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 upon those places where 

 the chrysalids of the young ants are collected, the 

 capture of which annoys the workers more than that 

 of a part of their own numbers. The holes which 

 they make are also too deep and large for being 

 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 by the first rain 

 that falls. Indeed, the best way of destroying a 

 large ant-hill in 'any country, is to lay it open by 

 boring in the same manner as is done by the arma- 

 dillos. 



They also bore under or into dead carcases, com- 

 mencing in the earth at some distance, and going 

 directly to that part of the carcase which pleases 

 their sense of smell the most. They thus continue 

 till they, on repeated visits, eat oat the whole of the 

 interior, while the surface, which is exposed to the 

 hot and drying atmosphere, is too hardened for their 

 being able to make any impression upon it ; and if 

 they find the putri4 interior full of maggots, tljese 

 and the substance upon which they are feeding are 

 equally welcome as a mess. They often also invade 

 the graves of human subjects, not merely of those 

 who die in the woods or wide plains, and have to 

 be buried there, but in the burying-grounds, and 

 those who are attentive to the mortal remains of 

 their friends, protect them with stones or bricks, as a 

 defence against the armadillos. Unless, however, 

 the place of sepulture is so secured in the bottom, as 

 well as at the sides and on the top, the security is 

 not perfect, as the animals get below, and mine 

 upwards till they come at the body. 



It is said that the males, and even the females, 

 evince that desire to devour the young in the early 

 stage, which is sometimes shown by pigs and other 

 animals ; and as it may sometimes happen that the 

 female, immediately after littering, has not access to 

 other food, one part of the brood may in this way be 

 sacrificed for the preservation of the remainder; and, 

 if so, the disproportion of the number of young pro- 

 duced above that of the teats of the mother may be 

 in so far accounted for. 



They multiply abundantly, however, and when 

 they are so far grown as to be able to take care of 

 themselves, they have few enemies. The shields 

 are proof against the teeth of the puma, or any 

 other of the few beasts of prey that are found in the 

 locality of the armadillos ; and, as the feline race 

 never scrape to any extent in the earth, as that 

 would damage their retractile claws, the armadillos 

 soon remove all that part of their bodies upon which 

 teeth or claws would make any impression out of 

 the reach of such foes. The vultures are the rivals 

 of armadillos in the matter of carrion ; but the vul- 

 tures are not much disposed to kill if they can 

 otherwise find food, and while feeding they are too 

 much occupied for interfering with any other crea- 

 ture, even though it is at work close by upon the 

 same subject. Besides, the nocturnal ones are not 

 abroad at those times when the vultures are feeding ; 

 for vultures are day feeders ; and, therefore, though 



much is usually said about the acuteness of their 

 sense of smell, it is probable that they depend much 

 more on sight in the finding of their food. Preyers 

 by scent are usually nocturnal, or at least twilight 

 feeders in a state of nature; and therefore the alle- 

 gations about the sense of smell in the vulture, which 

 have given scope to much ornate expatiation on the 

 part of those who know not very well what they say, 

 demand direct proof before they can be implicitly 

 admitted. 



Having thus few enemies, and pastures more 

 ample than almost any other race of land animals 

 that could be named, the armadillos are very abun- 

 dant, and it is probable that the colonisation by 

 Europeans has tended very considerably to increase 

 their numbers. They are much hunted, and many 

 of them are captured for food, as, when roasted in the 

 shell, some species are reckoned among the most 

 delicious bonnes bouches in the country. But still 

 they in some respects resemble cultivated animals, of 

 which the numbers are contrived to be increased in 

 proportion to the demand that there is for them. 

 Neither the Spaniards nor the Portuguese, indeed, 

 keep them in a domestic state, excepting a few for 

 curiosity, though it appears that they could easily 

 ae domesticated, at least as much so as warren rabbits 

 are, in any climate and soil suitable to their habits. 

 But their flesh, like that of almost all animals, is pro- 

 bably the more racy when they roam in free nature, 

 so that they have plenty of food ; and they are so 

 easily captured by flooding or smoking them out of 

 their burrows, that the hunting of them is not a mat- 

 ter of chance, but quite as certain as that of hares or 

 pheasants in a well-stocked preserve. And the co- 

 lonists, though not intentionally, have supplied them 

 with an abundance of food, and of food much to 

 their liking, to which there could have been nothing 

 comparable previous to the settlement of the Euro- 

 peans in the country. The cattle which the colonists 

 introduced have multiplied to innumerable herds in 

 those wide and fertile plains ; and the slaughter of 

 them for the skins only is largely practised as a regu- 

 lar trade. These cattle, too, appear to have become 

 so numerous, that there is no danger of exterminat- 

 ing them, or even permanently diminishing their 

 numbers, as those which are killed are perhaps even 

 more than replaced by the annual increase. When 

 they are killed for their skins the carcases are left 

 upon the spot, and thus there are thousands all over 

 the country, which, though the sun dries them on the 

 outside, every one becomes armadillos' food in the 

 interior. Into these the mailed fellows burrow, 

 and there wanton in a plenitude of luxury, which 

 must have been quite unknown to them when there 

 were no cattle in the country. To these may be 

 added the bodies of numerous horses and mules, and 

 even those of Indians and Guachos, who are fre- 

 quently falling in the continued small hostilities be- 

 tween 'these races. All these must conduce to make 

 the country a land of luxurious plenty to the arma- 

 dillos of the present time, compared to what it must 

 have been to their remote ancestors in ages long gone 

 by ; and as they feed more daintily, as well as more 

 abundantly, than when they were confined to their 

 wild roots, and insects, and worms, with a small lizard 

 or snake now and then, by way of tit-bit, we may 

 conclude that they have not only become more 

 abundant in numbers, but of larger size, and more 

 juicy in flesh. It is on this account also that their 



