CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 8. EDENTATA. 473 



and readily indicates bis path to the hunter ; though, when hard pressed, he increases his pace 

 to a kind of slow gallop, yet his greatest velocity never half equals the ordinary running of a man. 

 So great is his stupidity, that those who encounter him in the woods or plains may drive him be- 

 fore them by merely pushing him with a stick, so long at least as he is not compelled to proceed 

 beyond a moderate gallop ; but if pressed too hard, or urged to extremity, he becomes obstinate, 

 sits up on bis hind-quarters like a bear, and defends himself with his powerful claws. Like that 

 animal, his usual, and indeed only mode of assault, is by seizing his adversary with his fore-paws, 

 wrapping his arms round him, and endeavoring by this means to squeeze him to death. His 

 great strength and powerful muscles would easily enable him to accomplish his purpose in this 

 respect, even against the largest animals of his native forests, were it but guided by ordinary in- 

 telligence, or accompanied with a common degree of activity. But in these qualities he is infe- 

 rior to most other creatures ; nevertheless, there is no reason to doubt that he does sometimes 

 thus defend himself against the larger and more valorous animals which he meets in his Dative 

 haunts. 



Genus TAMANDUA ; Tamandua. — Of this there is a single species, the Tamandua, T. tetra- 

 dactyla, called the Little Ant-Eater by the English, and Fourmilier by the French : it resem- 

 bles the preceding in form, but is much smaller, being only two feet two inches long, and the tail 

 sixteen inches. The hair is short and shiny, and resembles both silk and wool. The color is very 

 variable, and hence there are several varieties ; some naturalists regard them as different species. 

 The eyes are minute ; the ears small and round ; the body long and cylindrical ; the legs short 

 and robust ; the tail round and attenuated, covered with very short hair throughout its greater 

 part, but naked underneath toward the point, and strongly prehensile. 



The Tamandua is an inhabitant of the thick primeval forests of tropical America; it is never 

 found on the ground, but resides exclusively in trees, where it- lives upon termites, honey, and 

 even, according to the report of Azara, bees, which in those countries form their hives among the 

 loftiest branches of the forest, and having no sting, are more readily despoiled of their honey than 

 their congeners of our own climate. "When about to sleep, it hides its muzzle in the fur of its 

 breast, falls on its belly, and letting its fore-feet hang down on each side, wraps the whole tightly 

 round with its tail. The female, as in the case of the great ant-eater, has but two pectoral 

 mammae, and produces but a single cub at a birth, which she carries about with her on her shoul- 

 ders for the first three or four months. The young are at first exceedingly deformed and ugly, 

 and of a uniform straw-color. 



Brisson thinks an animal which is named Fourmilier a queue annelee, or the Ring-tailed Ant- 

 Eater, is a distinct species. 



The Genus MYRMIDON : Myrmidon — called Didactyles by F. Cuvier, Dionyx by Is. Geoff- 

 roy, and Cyclothure by Gray — presents a single species, the Two-toed Ant-Eater, M. didactylus. 

 This animal is of the size of a small squirrel, the body being six inches long and the tail seven. 

 In form it resembles the tamandua; it is of a straw-color, tinged with maroon on the shoulder- ; 

 its habits are nocturnal ; it lives in the trees, produces one cub at a birth, and feeds on insects. 

 Like the other ant-eaters it is destitute of teeth, has a prehensile tail, two claws in front and four 

 behind, and sits on its haunches in feeding. The inhabitants of Surinam, never seeing it eat when 

 captured, and observing it to be frequently licking its paws, call it Kissing-Hand. It is found in 

 Guiana and Brazil. 



THE MANIDES OR PANGOLINS. 



The animals of this family, which are sometimes called the Scaly Ant-Eaters, are not less pe- 

 culiar in their external appearance than are the armadillos, for the upper part and sides of the 

 body, as well as the legs and tail, are protected by numerous horny scales, imbricated one. upon 

 the other like the tiles of a roof, and implanted in the skin like nails. Their name Pangolin* is 

 said to be derived from the Javanese, Pangoeling, which means, an animal Jhat rolls itself into a 

 ball; in Bungalore the name is Bad jar Kita, which means Reptiles of stone. They arc without 

 teeth, have an extensile tongue and two pectoral mammas, subsist on ants and termites, are slow 

 of motion, and have five toes on each foot. 



Vol. I.— 60 



