ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



be eyes beneath ; in such a strange creature 

 any distribution of the sense of siglit would not 

 be unbelievable ! This raising of the scales 

 seemed in the nature of a trick, an invitation 

 to a waiting enemy. Anj' attempt to seize one 

 of those lifted scales resulted in disaster; like 

 the jaws of a steel trap they closed down with 

 such force as to bruise the finger cruelly, or 

 actually to pinch off a fragment of flesh. One's 

 enthusiasm for scientific investigation in this 

 direction was satiated at one trial, which was 

 also sufficient to prove that a Tamil trail- 

 mender has a sense of humor and a lack of 

 sympathy. 



If the scale trap remained unsprung, the 

 next sign of the evolution of the Pangolin was 

 in the gradual drawing forth of his head, always 

 with his fore paws held tightly across his face 

 just below his eyes, like a boy cheating at blind 

 man's buif. The little dull eyes looked about, 

 then the long mobile snout came into play with 

 its much keener sense of smell, and the ears 

 with their sense, the most valuable of all to this 

 animal. If the coast seemed clear, the tail 

 swung around, the short legs gathered them- 

 selves together and the creature ambled off. 

 With such perfect defense flight is useless, so 

 his fastest gait is a man's slow walk. And his 

 normal position on the march is very unlike 

 that conceived and executed by the average 

 museum taxidermist. His tail drags, his head 

 is held low and iiis back is steeply arched, re- 

 minding one of the old Stegosaurus of Jurassic 

 days. Indeed flight is imjjossible as it would be 

 for an average man to attempt to run with 

 armor of fifty pounds weight. 



The Pangolin is made for ants, and ants 

 alone: without them, he would starve at once; 

 with a goodly supply it is difficult to conceive 

 of his dying, other than from old age or over- 

 eating. The mouth is tiny, as only ants pass 

 in ; the tongue is very long, serpent-like in its 

 mobility and covered with glutinous saliva. 

 Why it does not engine as much earth as ants 

 it is hard to explain. To attempt to subsist 

 on the ants found wandering about the forest 

 would be like harvesting wheat, grain bv grain, 

 so it is necessary for the Pangolin to go to the 

 metropolis for supplies. This is perhaps the 

 most important work of its life and we find 

 it admirably adapted for it. Twenty very 



strong claws, backed by muscles of immense 

 power suffice to tear through the anthills, hard 

 almost as concrete. It can neither ensheath its 

 claws like a cat, nor carry them raised above 

 the ground as the screamer, so it folds them 

 back, doubled up like jack-knives, beneath the 



soles of its feet, and thus walks upon them, 

 the edges and points kept unblunted. 



Home is usually a chamber at the end of 

 an underground tunnel, but the Anteater some- 

 times climbs slanting trees in search of ants' 

 nests, or of sanctuary in a hollow trunk. When 

 cornered on a branch it will curl around the 

 bough into as invulnerable a position as on the 

 ground. Occasionally a Pangolin achieves Nir- 

 vana b}' burrowing into a giant anthill and 

 there sleeps away his days and eats away his 

 nights, until death relieves him of the sheer 

 monotony of living. Such an accusation may 

 be unjust, however, for in common with all 

 organic beings, his safety and nourishment are 

 but means to an end, and to continue his race 

 he must find a mate. Of this phase of his life 

 we know nothing, not ev 'n how he discovers or 

 communicates with othert. of his kind. To be 

 sure anthills are not innumerable, and there 

 is little chance of finding a Pangolin elsewhere 

 tiian at one of these insect cities, unless it be 

 going or coming. 



His voice is less than reptilian — a low, faint 

 hiss ; otherwise he is dumb ; his eye-sight is so 

 bad that if one stands still for a moment, the 

 creature will crawl close to or between one's 

 feet. But it flinches at the least sound and as 

 it walks it is continually sniffing, moving its 

 muzzle up and down. Doubtless they find one 

 another by the perception of some odor too in- 

 tangible for our coarse sense, or perhaps bj' the 

 sound of digging into the anthills. It is said 

 that sometimes a pair of these animals live to- 

 gether in the same burrow. As to the birth and 

 youth of a Pangolin we have only the record of 

 a single one born in captivity, whose scales 

 were soft and fleshy until the second day. The 

 young doubtless remain in their underground 

 home until weaned. 



Ants, both stinging and harmless, form the 

 entire food, although we must extend this gen- 

 eral term to include the neuropterous white ants 

 or termites. I have counted five hundred fire 

 ants in the gizzard of a Pangolin, their bites 

 .and stings powerless against the sticky, mei'ci- 

 less tongue whicli played and [jlayed again 

 among them, each time sweeping away scores. 

 Lacking teeth, the creature swallows tiny peb- 

 bles which, as in a chicken, aid in crushing the 

 hard bodies of the ants. 



The study of the life of former ages has re- 

 vealed nothing of the ancestry of the Pangolin. 

 Two millions of years ago Pangolin-like crea- 

 tures roamed the earth, presumably during the 

 Oligocene nights, and feeding presumably on 

 Oligocene ants, but even then so specialized as 



