ORDER EDENTATA. 275 



days, enduring extreme hunger, before it can prevail on 

 itself to descend, or more properly speaking, to fall down. 

 When, however, the demands of nature become too im- 

 perious to be resisted, it rolls itself up into a ball, drops down 

 plump upon the ground, and drags itself heavily along to 

 another tree, in search of fresh nutriment. This long absti- 

 nence, which lasts, it is said, for fifteen days, is not more 

 the effect of the slothful disposition attributed to the Ai, 

 than of its vacillating and constrained walk; it is organized 

 for this singular degree of privation. Had nature bestowed 

 upon it a greater appetite, she would also have afforded it 

 a greater portion of activity for its satisfaction. It is re- 

 ported that the Ai' never drinks. Its dry and flat hair forms 

 a sort of thick mantle, which shelters it from the rain. 



The second species, of which Illiger makes his genus 

 Chcdopus, is the Unau of Buffon, (Brady pus Didactylus of 

 Linnaeus.) The Unau is larger than the Ai'; its head is 

 more elongated ; the face more oblique ; and the forehead 

 less prominent and defined; its fur is a composition of 

 long rough hairs, both brown and white, the result of 

 which mixture is a brown-grayish tint, paler under the 

 throat and belly than above, and more especially so than 

 the upper part of the neck, where the tint is deeper than 

 on any other part of the body ; the hairs of the fore-arm are 

 directed backwards ; there is no down at the basis of the 

 hair, as in the Ai; the longest hairs are those of the occi- 

 put and neck, which form a sort of peruke, or rather mane, 

 behind the head ; those on the thighs are also very long. 



The canine teeth are stronger and more apparent in 

 this species than in the preceding ; they are also less sub- 

 ject to wear ; the bones of the hands and feet are less fre- 

 quently soldered together, as it were, than in the Ai' ; accord- 

 ingly, the Unau can perform more facile and varied motions 

 than its congener. A Unau, whose body is two feet in 

 height, has generally a head about five inches long. The 



