262 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



armadillos, and, nevertheless, there is one very strange 

 character present in some pangolins, which forcibly brings 

 the sloths to mind. We have already called attention 

 to the very remarkable fact that sloths differ from all 

 other beasts save two, in that they have neck-bones 

 which may be as few as six, or as many as nine instead 

 of being of the sabbatical number, seven, as they are in 

 mammals, with both the longest and the shortest necks. 

 Now, it has been of late years discovered that in some 

 pangolins there are eight bones in the neck. If there is 

 no really exceptional affinity between the pangolins and 

 sloths, the fact, that they thus agree to differ from all 

 other beasts (save one) and man, in the number of tl^eir 

 neck-bones, is a very interesting one. 



That it may be a mere coincidence is, however, ren- 

 dered less improbable by the fact, that the only other 

 creature which exhibits a divergence from the normal 

 condition of beasts, as to this character, is the manatee, 

 an aquatic animal which certainly has no special rela- 

 tionship to either sloths or pangolins. 



The last group of that order of animals in which the 

 sloth is classed consists but of two species of earth-pig, 

 or aard-vark, one of which inhabits South Africa, while 

 the other is to be found in North-east Africa, including 

 Egypt. In tertiary times, a species also existed in what 

 is now the Island of Samos in the Turkish Archipelago 

 These creatures differ greatly from other edentates, 

 while in the structure of their teeth they diverge in the 

 most remarkable manner from every known mammal, 

 and approximate to certain fishes. 



The earth-pig has at first sight a rough resemblance 

 to a large hog. It is scantily covered with bristle-like 

 hairs, has a long snout, the end of which is very mobile, 

 and with terminal nostrils, long ears, rather short limbs. 



