THE ANT-EATERS 171 
is generally esteemed as palatable food. Being in a state of 
perpetual hunger, we found armadillo stew very much to 
our taste. The Nine-Banded Armadillo has a total length, 
from nose to end of tail, of about 26 inches, and in bulk is 
about the size of our opossum. In captivity its food is milk, 
boiled eggs and chopped meat, but in a wild state it feeds 
upon a mixed diet of worms, ants, snails, beetles, small lizards, 
grasshoppers and other insects. The young in a litter vary 
from six to ten. 
THE FAMILY OF ANT-EATERS 
Myrmecophagidae 
The ant-eaters form another Family of Edentates, also 
confined to South and Central America, and all its members 
are absolutely toothless. The most celebrated member of 
the group is the Great Ant-Eater.’ Although it is very 
unlike a bear, it is sometimes called the Ant-““BrEar”’; and 
when once seen it is never forgotten. The most peculiar 
thing about it is the extraordinary length of its head, which 
in front of the eyes is prolonged into a slender beak, with the 
mouth and nostrils situated at its tip end. The opening of 
the mouth is just large enough to admit the blunt end of a 
lead pencil. 
The feature which comes next in oddity is the big, fleshy 
tail, covered with an enormous brush of coarse, wavy hair. 
The popular belief in South America that the Ant-Eater 
sweeps up ants with its tail in order to devour them in a 
wholesale way, is quite erroneous, for the tail serves a very 
1 Myr-me-coph'a-ga ju-ba’ta. 
