ARMADILLOS. 



The armadillos belong to a family of the Order Edentata. 

 An exemplification of the difficulty experienced by the 

 scientific zoologist, in finding a suitable nomenclature 

 under which to arrange and classify the various orders of 

 the animal kingdom, is aptly given in the Order Edentata 

 (or toothless). For the largest species of armadillo 

 {Dasypus gigas) is furnished with a larger number of 

 teeth than any other quadruped (mammal), the teeth 

 consisting of upwards of ninety molars. Notwithstanding 

 this anomaly, a more convenient or less inconsistent place 

 for arranging the genus Dasypus has not been found. 

 Armadillos have the appearance, at first sight, of reptiles ; 

 the horny skin, covered with bands and plates, strikes the 

 observer as bearing a resemblance to lizards or crocodiles, 

 but more particularly to tortoises ; and long since some of 

 the ablest anatomists pointed out strong and well-marked 

 characters of agreement in the structure of those distantly 

 related forms. Notwithstanding the apparently close 

 similitude in some of the structures, the idea that the 

 affinity is very great cannot, for one moment, be enter- 

 tained ; they may be nearer than the tortoise-shell cat to 

 the tortoise. However many resemblances can be found, 

 perhaps a large number of well-marked differences can be 

 distinguished: the structure of the bones themselves, where 

 a section is examined under the microscope, presents at 



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