ANT-EATERS AND SLOTHS 
The lesser ant-eater or caguari is not more than half as 
large as the other, and lives altogether in trees, curling up to 
sleep in a crotch. It has a shorter head, large ears, short 
bristly hair of variable light tints, and a long, strong, terete 
tail, naked, scaly, and prehensile toward the end. The whole 
animal smells abominably. It is more powerfully clawed than 
even its cousin, rips up bark and dead wood in search of ter- 
mites, or tears open the nests of wasps to get the honey and 
grubs; and, judging by the viciousness with which it will fight 
cats and dogs, is well able to defend itself against natural 
enemies. 
Finally, northern Brazil and the Isthmus region possess a 
species, the silky ‘‘two-toed” ant-eater, no larger than a rat, 
bright yellow in color, and seldom seen, for it is nocturnal and 
keeps in the tree tops, aided by a prehensile tail. It seems to 
live mainly on wasp grubs. Von Sack*’ gives an interesting 
account of one he kept in confinement, which reminded him by 
its behavior of a miniature sloth. 
The sloths, forming the family Bradypodide, and known 
through all the forested lowlands of tropical America, are 
really pretty close counterparts of the ant-eaters in 
organization, but have more the form of apes, being 
very hairy, and having exceedingly long and muscular limbs, 
ending in double or triple hooks rather than in anything like 
ordinary hands or feet. These hooks are the long curved claws 
by which these animals, which spend their whole lives in trees, 
hang back downward beneath a branch, or slowly scramble 
about. This, and clinging to one another’s shaggy coat, are al- 
most all the hands and feet are ever asked to do. The food 
is nothing but leaves, plucked with the lips and swallowed with 
little crushing, for the creature’s only teeth are a few in each 
cheek, without any coating of enamel and fixed in the jaws like 
pegs. There are two types of sloth,—one, the ai or tardo, 
having two toes on the fore feet, and the other, the unau, three 
473 
Sloths. 
