QUADRUPEDS COVERED 



ness. The fox often destroys the hedgehog by 

 pressing it with his weight, and thus obliges it to 

 put forth its nose, which he instantly seizes, and 

 soon after the whole body ; but the scales of the 

 pangolin effectually support it under any such 

 weight, while nothing that the strongest animals 

 are capable of doing, can compel it to surrender. 

 Man alone seems furnished with arms to conquer 

 its obstinacy : The Negroes of Africa, when they 

 find it, beat it to death with clubs, and consider 

 its flesh as a very great delicacy. 



But although this animal be so formidable in 

 its appearance, there cannot be a more harmless 

 inoffensive creature when unmolested. It is even 

 unqualified by nature to injure larger animals, if 

 it had the disposition, for it has no teeth. It 

 should seem that the bony matter which goes in 

 other animals to supply the teeth, is exhausted in 

 this in supplying the scales that go to the cover- 

 ing of its body. However this be, its life seems 

 correspondent to its peculiar conformation. In- 

 capable of being carnivorous, since it has no 

 teeth, nor of subsisting on vegetables, which re- 

 quire much chewing, it lives entirely upon in- 

 sects, for which nature has fitted it in a very ex- 

 traordinary manner. As it has a long nose, so it 

 may naturally be supposed to have a long tongue ; 

 but, to increase its length still more, it is doubled 

 in the mouth, so that when extended, it is shot 

 out to above a quarter of a yard beyond the tip 

 of the nose. This tongue is round, extremely 

 red, and covered with an unctuous and slimy 

 liquor, which gives it a shining hue. When the 



