WITH SCALES OR SHELLS. 219 



with a shell. In both they resemble each other, 

 as well in the strangeness of their appetites as in 

 their awkward conformation. Like animals but 

 partially made up, and partaking of different na- 

 tures, they want those instincts which animals 

 formed but for one element alone are found to 

 possess. They seem to be a kind of strangers in 

 nature, creatures taken from some other element, 

 and capriciously thrown to find a precarious sub- 

 sistence upon land. 



THE PANGOLIN. 



THE Pangolin,* which has been usually called 

 the Scaly Lizard, M. Buffon very judiciously re- 

 stores to that denomination by which it is known 

 in the countries where it is found. The calling 

 it a lizard, he justly observes, might be apt to 

 produce error, and occasion its being confounded 

 with an animal which it resembles only in its 

 general form, and in its being covered with 

 scales. The lizard may be considered as a rep- 

 tile produced from an egg ; the pangolin is a 

 quadruped, and brought forth alive, and perfect- 

 ly formed. The lizard is all over covered with 

 the marks of scales ; the pangolin has scales nei- 

 ther on the throat, the breast, nor the belly. The 

 scales of the lizard seem stuck upon the body 



[* This animal has no teeth either in the upper or under jaw ; the 

 tongue is long and cylindrical ; the snout, long and narrow ; and the 

 body is covered with hard scales.] 



