THE AXT-EATERS. 



347 



known. It is not uncommon in the drier forests of the Amazons 

 valley. The Brazilians call the species'the Tamandud bandeira, or 

 the Banner Ant-Eater; the term banner," says Mr. Bates,* "being 

 applied in allusion to the curious coloration of the animal, each side 

 of the body having a broad oblique stripe, half gray and half black, 

 which gives it some resemblance to a heraldic banner. It has an 

 excessively long, slender muzzle, and a warm-like extensile tongue. 

 Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The claws are much elongated, and 



1. Armadillo Loricata. 2. Ant-Eater. 



its gait is very awkward. It lives on the ground, but all the other 

 species of this singular genus are arboreal. I met with four species 

 altogether. One was the Myrmecophaga tetradactyla, or Little Ant- 

 Eater ; the two others, more curious and less known, were very 

 small kinds, called Tamandud-i (Myrmecophaga tamandua'). Both 

 are similar in size ten inches in length, exclusive of the tail and in 

 the number of the claws, having two of unequal length to the anterior 

 * H. W. Bates, " The Naturalist on the Amazons," pp. 112, 113. 



