WITH SCALES OR SHELLS. 225 



deserts where they have no enemies but such as 

 they are enabled to oppose. 



The Armadillo is chiefly an inhabitant of South 

 America ; a peaceful harmless creature, incapable 

 of offending any other quadruped, and furnished 

 with a peculiar covering for its own defence.* 

 The pangolin, described above, seems an inac- 

 tive helpless being, indebted for safety more to 

 its patience than its power ; but the armadillo 

 is still more exposed and helpless. The pan- 

 golin is furnished with an armour that wounds 

 while it resists, and that is never attacked with 

 impunity; but the armadillo is obliged to sub- 

 mit to every insult, without any power of re- 

 pelling its enemy ; it is attacked without danger, 

 and is consequently liable to more various per- 

 secutions* 



This animal being covered, like a tortoise, with 

 a shell, or rather a number of shells, its other 

 proportions are not easily discerned. It appears, 

 at first view, a round misshapen mass, with a 

 long head, and a very large tail sticking out at 

 either end, as if not of a piece with the rest of 

 the body. It is of different sizes, from a foot to 

 three feet long, and covered with a shell divided 

 into several pieces, that lap over each other like 

 the plates in a coat of armour, or in the tail of a 

 lobster. The difference in the size of this animal, 

 and also the different disposition and number of 

 its plates, have been considered as constituting 



[* These animals have grinders, but neither fore-teeth nor dog-teeth; 

 they are covered with a hard bony shell, intersected with distinct raoveable 

 zoiies or belts. ] 



VOL. III. P 



