240 THE ARMADILLO. 
madillo. All the Armadillos are natives of 
South America, and are inoffensive animals, 
which burrow in the ground, and feed upon 
vegetables. Buffon speaks of an Armadillo 
which he saw in Languedoc, domesticated 
and going about the house without doing 
any mischief. 
The Armadillos, with their shells upon 
their backs, remind us of the Tortoise, as 
the Manises, with their scales, remind us of 
the Lizards; and it even appears that na- 
ture, within the class Mammalia, or warm- 
blooded and sucking animals, has a sort of 
imitation of all the classes of the animate 
creation together. Among the Mammalia, 
the great majority of the species are the 
Quadrupeds, or beasts commonly so called ; 
but, in the same class, the Bats, the Flying 
Squirrel, and still more, the Ornithorynchus, 
or Platypus,* of New Holland, make ap- 
* Specimens of the Five-toed, or Short-tailed 
Manis, which, by some writers, is called the Pango- 
lin, and referred to the Island of Java for its coun- 
try ; and also of another, called Manis Javanica in 
the Catalogue, are to be seen in the Museum, Nos. 
265, 266. 
