﻿XXIII. 



ON THE DISSECTION OF THE PANGOLIN, 



In a Letter to General Carnac 

 from Adam Burt, Esq* 



COMMUNICATED BY THE GENERAL. 



S I R, 



IN compliance with your desire, I most willingly 

 do myself the honour to present to you my obser- 

 vations and reflections on the dissection of one of those 

 animals, of which we have a print, with a very short 

 account, in the First Volume of the Transactions of 

 the Asiatic Society. The animal, from which that 

 likeness has been taken, was sent by Mr. Leslie, from 

 Chitra, to the President Sir William Jones. It is dis- 

 tinguished in the Transactions by a name, which I do 

 not at present remember 5 but probably the animal 

 is of the same genus with the Manis, as described in 

 the former edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, or, 

 perhaps, not different from the Pangolin of Bujfon. 



The representation of this animal in the Memoirs 

 of the Asiatic Society, makes it unnecessary for me to 

 enter into any general description of its external figure 

 and appearance. There are on each foot five claws, of 

 which the outer and inner are small when compared 

 with the other three. There are no distinct toes; but 

 each nail is moveable by a joint at its root. This 

 creature is extremely inoffensive : it has no teeth; and 

 its feet are unable to grasp. Hence it would appear 

 that Nature, having furnished it with a coat of mail 

 for its protection, has, with some regard to justice, de- 

 nied it the powers of acting with hostility against 



