THE AARD-VARK 425 



eye, this strange-looking animal is perfectly harmless, except 

 when it is roused to defend itself. Its sole method of 

 fighting is to seize its antagonist in its powerful arms, 

 seeking to drive its claws into its body. Dogs are often 

 killed in this manner, and it is recorded that hunters have 

 succumbed to the animal's fierce clasp, in which the terrible 

 claws have penetrated to the heart. It is sometimes asserted 

 that the Tamanoir is a match for the jaguar, a statement 

 rather easily disposed of when one remembers that the 

 American ' tiger' could despatch the slow-going animal 

 by a blow of its paw, to say nothing of one bite with its 

 terrible teeth. 



Ant-eaters, in common with the Sloths, are exceedingly 

 difficult to kill. The tough skin resists an ordinary small 

 hunting-knife, and battering the skull with heavy stones 

 will do no more than temporarily stun the animals. 

 Even in its native regions the Great Ant-eater is nowhere 

 common, and it is nocturnal, like all Edentates, which 

 increases the difficulty of learning some of its habits. It is 

 a lonely animal, spending the daytime folded up in the tall 

 grass. Its single young one is carried about on the parent's 

 back for a long time, very often until another is born to 

 displace it. 



FAMILY ORYCTEROPID^. 



AARD-VARK (Orycteropus capensis). 

 Plate XLI. Fig. 2. 



The Aard-vark in its general build, long, viscid tongue, and 

 burrowing claws, possesses the typical characteristics of the 

 Myrmecophaga. The Great Ant-eater is a strange-looking 

 creature that, even with its coloured coat and its luxuriant 

 tail, can lay no claims to beauty ; but the Aard-vark, with 

 hair as scanty as many species of pig and with a tapering 

 cylindrical tail, has more the appearance of a reptile than 

 a mammal. The ears are exceedingly large, the long, narrow 

 snout is decidedly porcine, and but for its arched back 

 would convey a tolerable notion of a short-legged pig. The 



