382 



ANIMALS OF 



found at any great distancefrom their retreats, 

 so that it requires some patience and skill to 

 intercept their retreat. 



There are scarce any of these that do not 

 root the ground, like a hog, in searcli of such 

 roots as make a principal part of their food. 

 They live also upon melons and other succu- 

 lent vegetables, and all will eat flesh when 

 they can get it. They frequent water and 

 watery places, where they feed upon worms, 

 small fish, and water insects. It is pretended 

 that there is a kind of friendship between 

 them and the rattle-snake, that they live 

 peaceably and commodiously together, and 

 are frequently found in the same hole. This, 

 however, may be a friendship of necessity to 

 the armadillo; the rattle-snake takes posses- 

 sion of its retreats, which neither are willing 

 to quit, while each is incapable of injuring 

 the other. 



As to the rest, these animals, though they 

 all resemble each other in the general cha- 

 racter of being clothed with a shell, yet differ 

 a good deal in their size, and in the parts into 

 which their shell is divided. The first of this 

 kind, which has but three bands between the 

 two large pieces that cover the back, is call- 

 ed the TATU APARA. I will not enter into an 

 exact description of its figure, which, how 

 well written soever, no imagination could ex- 

 actly conceive ; and the reader would be 

 more fatigued to understand than I to write it. 

 The tail is shorter in this than any other kind, 

 being not more than two inches long, while 

 the shell, taking all the pieces together, is a 

 foot long and eight inches broad. The 

 second is the TATOU of Ray, or the ENCOU- 



BERT of Buffbn; this is distinguished from 

 the rest by six bands across the back; it is 

 about the size of a pig of a month old, with 

 a small long head and a very long tail. The 

 third is the TATUETTE, furnished with eight 

 bands, and not by a great deal so big as the 

 former. Its tail is loi.ger also, and its legs 

 shorter in proportion. Its body, from the nose 

 to the insertion of the tail, is about ten inches 

 long, and the tail seven. The fourth is the 

 PIG-HEADED ARMADILLO, with nine bands. This 

 is much larger than the former, being about 

 two feet long from the nose to the tail. The 

 fifth is the KABASSOU, or CATAPHRACTUS, with 

 twelve bands, and still bigger than the former, 

 or any other of its kind. This is often found 

 above three feet long ; but is never eaten as 

 the rest are. The sixth is the WEASEL-HEADED 

 ARMADILLO, with eighteen bands, with a large 

 piece before, and nothing but bands back- 

 ward. This is above a foot long, and the tail 

 five inches. Of all these, the kabassou and 

 the encoubert are the largest; the rest are 

 of a much smaller kind. In the larger kinds, 

 the shell is much more solid than in the 

 others, and the flesh is much harder and un- 

 fit for the table. These are generally seen 

 to reside in dry upland grounds, while the 

 small species are always fbundinmoist places, 

 and in the neighbourhood of brooks and rivers. 

 They all roll themselves into a ball; but those 

 whose bands are fewest in number are least 

 capable of covering themselves incompletely. 

 The tatu apara, for instance, when rolled up, 

 presents two great interstices between its 

 bands, by which it is very easily vulnerable, 

 even by the feeblest of quadrupeds. 



CHAPTER LVI. 



ANIMALS OF THE BAT KIND 



HAVING in the last chapter described a 

 race of animals that unite the boundaries be- 

 tween quadrupeds and insects, I come in this 

 to a very different class, that serve to fill up 

 the chasm between quadrupeds and birds. 

 Some naturalists, indeed, have found animals 



of the bat kind so much partaking of the na- 

 ture of both, that they have been at a loss in 

 which rank to place them, and have doubted, 

 in giving the history of the bat, whether it 

 was a beast or a bird they were describing. 

 These doubts, however, no longer exist; they 



