50 MAMMALIAN GALLERY. 



compelled, and feeding on leaves and young twigs, for the masti- 

 cation of which their few and simple teeth are sufficiently well 

 suited. They are slow in their movements, but by no means so 

 helpless as is often supposed, although they escape their enemies 

 less by their own exertion than by the difficulty with which they 

 are distinguished from the branch to which they cling. They 

 inhabit the forests of Tropical America. The living species of 

 Sloths are not much larger than a cat ; but remains of an extinct 

 Sloth (Megatherium] occur in abundance in the Pampas of South" 

 America, which exceeded an elephant in bulk. So ponderous an 

 animal could only live on the ground. 



The Anteaters (Myrmecophagida] have narrow heads with long 

 snouts, to accommodate their enormously long worm-like tongues ; 

 their tails are well developed, and in some species prehensile, their 

 toes separate from each other, as in ordinary mammals, and the 

 third on the fore foot is provided with a huge digging claw. Like 

 the Sloths, they are all natives of Tropical America. The Great 

 Anteater (Myrmecophaga jubata) is about four feet in length and 

 has a long black mane along its back, and a thick bushy tail. 

 It is terrestrial in its habits, and feeds entirely on ants, which it 

 catches with its long sticky tongue, after having torn open their 

 nests with its powerful claws. Much smaller are the Tamanduas 

 and the Two-toed Anteater, the latter being scarcely larger than 

 a rat. Both lead an entirely arboreal life. 



The Loricata, or Shielded Edentates, consist of the single family 

 Dasypodidcs, or Armadilloes, remarkable for the thick plates of 

 ossified skin with which their bodies are covered, and which form 

 immovable shields across the shoulders and hips, while the centre 

 of the back is protected by a greater or less number of transverse 

 bands of plates, jointed to each other by flexible skin. The head and 

 tail are also covered by a mosaic of bony plates; but the belly and 

 the inner sides of the limbs are clothed with soft skin only. They 

 possess teeth, which are, however, of very simple character. Their 

 fore feet have a variable number of long and powerful claws, and 

 their hind feet have always five rather small claws. About twenty 

 species are known. Prionodon maximus, the Giant Armadillo, is the 

 largest, measuring more than two feet in length ; while the smallest, 

 rarest, and in many respects the most interesting, is the Mole- 

 Armadillo (Chlamydophorus truncatus), which has the outer shield 



