SPINY ANTEATERS 241 



woodpeckers, South American anteaters, and the Old World pangolins and ant- 

 bear. In common with the latter, spiny anteaters have long, thin, protrusile, sticky 

 tongues, to which the insects adhere, and are thus drawn into the mouth of their 

 devourers. The small, slender, and much elongated toothless jaws are encased in 

 a horny covering which forms a sort of tube allowing the passage of the worm- 

 shaped tongue ; the opening being closed by means of a horny tip on the lower jaw. 

 Like all the lower types of mammals, spiny anteaters lead nocturnal lives, and 

 are by no means intelligent animals, although possessing resources and con- 

 trivances of which it is difficult to believe them capable. On one occasion, for 

 instance, one of these anteaters which had been confined in a cask effected its 

 escape apparently by climbing up the concave sides. It appears, however, to have 

 missed the company of its mate, which was also in the cask, for a few days later 

 the escaped animal was again discovered in the cask. Another specimen apparently 

 found the small inverted box in which it was kept an uncomfortable residence, 

 as it endeavoured day and night to escape, and repeatedly stretched out its tongue 

 underneath the edges by way of exploration. Finally, one night it succeeded in 

 raising the box and escaping, and for some time was searched for in vain, until 

 finally discovered in another box, about a foot high, and half full of lumps of gold- 

 bearing quartz, wrapped in paper. In these hard quarters it had scratched itself 

 a bed and was sleeping peacefully. At twilight spiny anteaters begin their 

 nightly rambles, seeking on the ground for ants' nests, and in soft, rotten tree- 

 stems for worms and insect-larvae. At dawn they retire to rest in holes excavated 

 for refuge from the heat of the midday sun ; and in such spots they are difficult to 

 discover, as the dark brown coat of spines mottled with lighter tints closely 

 resembles the colour of the parched Australian soil, into which these creatures 

 burrow till they are partially covered. These anteaters display a wonderful 

 capacity for resisting hunger, filling themselves, it is said, with sand if reduced to 

 great want, and living on their own fat. They are thus enabled to pass through 

 the hottest and driest period of the Australian summer in a sort of torpid con- 

 dition. When the rainy season sets in, in April or May, causing a luxuriant 

 growth of grass to spring up with surprising rapidity, the males, which up to this 

 time have lived alone, proceed to search for mates. About the beginning of 

 August, on nearing the period when the eggs are deposited, the females develop a 

 pouch on the under surface of the body where the skin is baggy, into which the 

 two eggs are transferred as they are laid. As the heat of this breeding-pouch is 

 considerably higher than the general body-temperature, the eggs are hatched in a 

 short time. From their shells emerge small, helpless, naked young, whose only 

 occupation for a long while seems to be sucking up the milk which percolates 

 through the pores of their parent's breast. The breeding-pouch has two side-folds, 

 in each of which lie the sieve-like apertures of the milk-glands ; it also contains a 

 few short stiff bristles, which stick together by the action of the milk and thus 

 form a sort of brush. This brush is grasped by the young, which are thereby 

 enabled to obtain nutriment more easily than would otherwise be the case. In 

 this manner the young grow apace, each of them soon forming a ball as large as a 

 fist, the bulk of which gradually enlarges the pouch in which they live. When, how- 

 ever, the spines begin to grow sharp, the mother turns out her offspring to shift 

 vol. in. — 16 



