346 EAKTH TRESPASSERS. 



alarm, two means of flight at his disposal, one before 

 and another behind him, and the fur, lying as evenly 

 when smoothed from tail to head as it does when 

 turned in the natural direction, enables him to turn 

 astern, and retreat, tail first, into his hole, as easily as 

 he would go head first. 



"When we contemplate this grotesque and 

 strangely formed little creature, and see how wisely 

 and wonderfully it is fashioned and adapted to its 

 destined place, supplying another link in the great 

 chain of Nature, we cannot but feel God's power and 

 omnipresence. 



" Feeding in the dark, and living in the dark, eyes 

 would have been superfluous. Sound, save from 

 vibration in the earth, or when hunting at the open 

 cuttings, would seldom reach the tiny hermits. Hence, 

 the hearing organs have no external appendage for 

 catching sounds, and are but in a rudimentary form. 



" Hands fashioned with marvellous digging tools, 

 and hind feet turned into scrapers, for getting rid of 

 the rubbish dug out with the hands ; nose possessing 

 smell and touch in their most exquisite forces ; these 

 serve him for guides of unerring certainty and unde- 

 viating precision through his darksome wanderings." 



There are many other earth- trespassing animals 

 which I should well like to describe, but must omit, 

 on account of our fast -waning space. I cannot, how- 

 ever, but mention that extraordinary little being, the 

 Pichiciago of Chili (Chlamyphorus truncatus), which is 

 at the same time one of the rarest and the most 

 curious of the mammalia. 



