J 78 



THE WORLD OF ANIMAL LIFE 



THE ARMADILLO 



It is remarkable how Nature has in many cases forestalled 

 the inventions of man. There is a kind of fish which can give 

 electric shocks to any animal it may come in contact with, and 

 the bee knew how to make a perfect hexagon long before man 

 understood geometry. Now most readers will know what a coat 



Giant Armadillo 



of mail is. They will have seen either a real one in a museum, 

 or a picture of one in some book of the old chivalric days. It 

 was a shirt of leather, covered with a close net-work of steel rings, 

 or with a great many small overlapping steel plates, which was 

 worn by soldiers to protect them from the arrows and spears of 

 the enemy. But long before such a thing was thought of by man 

 there was a little animal which Nature had furnished with a com- 

 plete suit of mail to protect it against its foes. On account of this 

 wonderful armour this animal has been called the Armadillo. 



The armour, which is formed of thin bony plates, consists of 

 a headpiece and a shield for the fore part of the body and another 

 for the hind portion. These are solid, and are connected by bands 

 of plates joined by flexible skin, which allow the animal to bend 

 its body, and even to roll itself up into a ball like the hedgehog. 



