276 MAMMALIA— MANIS. 



All the lizards are wholly covered, even under the belly, with a sleek 

 speckled skin, resembling scales ; but the pangolin and the phatagin have 

 no scales under their throat, on the breast, or the belly ; the phatagin, like 

 the other quadrupeds, has hair on all these under parts of the body ; the 

 pangolin has nothing but a smooth skin without hair. The scales with 

 which all the other parts of the body of these two animals are clothed and 

 covered, do not stick to the skin ; they are only fixed and inherent to it 

 underneath ; they are moveable, like the prickles of the porcupine. These 

 scales are so large, so hard, and so sharp, that they frighten and discourage 

 all animals of prey ; on collision they will strike fire like flint ; it is an 

 offensive armor which wounds while it resists. 



The most cruel and the most voracious animals, such as the tiger and the 

 panther, make but useless efforts to devour these armed animals ; they tread 

 upon them, roll them; but when they attempt to seize them, they are 

 grievously wounded; they can neither terrify them by violence, nor bruise, 

 nor smother them with their weight. 



When the pangolin and the phatagin contract themselves, they do not 

 take, as the hedgehog, a globular and uniform figure ; they form an oblong 

 coat of armor ; but their thick and long tail remains outward, and encircles 

 their bodies. This exterior part, by which it seems these animals might 

 otherwise be seized, carries its own defence ; it is covered with scales 

 equally hard and sharp with those with which the body is clothed, and as it 

 is convex above, and flat below, in the form of half a pyramid, the sides are 

 covered with square scales folded in a right angle, as thick and as sharp as 

 the others ; so that the tail seems to be still more strongly armed than the 

 body, the under parts of which are unprovided with scales. 



The pangolin, or short tailed manis, is larger than the phatagin, or long 

 tailed kind ; his fore feet are covered with scales, but the phatagin's feet 

 and part of his fore legs have none, being only clothed with hair. The 

 pangolin has also larger scales, thicker, more convex, and not so close as 

 those of the phatagin, which are armed with three sharp points ; on the 

 contrary, the scales of the pangolin are without points, and uniformly sharp. 

 The phatagin is hairy upon the belly; and the pangolin has no hair on that 

 part of his body, but between those scales which cover his back some thick 

 and long hair issues like the bristles of a hog, which are not found on the 

 back of the phatagin. 



'The pangolin is from six to eight feet in length, including his tail ; the 

 tail is very near as long as the body, though it appears shorter when young ; 

 the scales are not then so large nor so thick, and of a pale color, which is 

 deeper when the animal is adult ; they acquire such a hardness, that they 

 resist a musket ball. Like the ant-eaters, the pangolin and the phatagin 

 live chiefly upon ants ; they have also a very long tongue, a narrow mouth, 

 and without apparent teeth ; their body and their tail are also very long, and 

 the claws of their feet very near of the same length and the same form, but 



