WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 



once an unmistakable and well-defined diversity. The 

 late Professor Quekett first pointed out the structure of 

 the tissues of the bones of reptiles, as distinguished from 

 these parts of birds and mammals, the warm blood. The 

 mode of reproduction, and suckling the helpless and blind 

 young, exhibit, in the armadillos, a wide contrast with the 

 egg-laying, cold-blooded tortoises, whose young, like all 

 other reptiles, are produced in a perfect condition, and are 

 able to provide for themselves as soon as they are hatched. 

 It would be useless to proceed calling attention to many 

 other differences, for many missing links will have to be 

 found and supplied ere the armadillos can be united to 

 the tortoises. A little three-banded armadillo {Tolypcutes 

 conurus) that was exhibited in the Zoological Gardens, 

 was noticed to walk on the points of the long claws of its 

 fore-feet, and that mode of progression suggested to the 

 observer the probability that some of the monster eden- 

 tate animals known only by their fossil remains, progressed 

 in that manner instead of tree climbing, as they have been 

 represented by their describers, who could not find the 

 bones of the feet and toes suited to walking on the 

 ground. The great ant-eater {Myrmecopha juhata), another 

 of the Order Edentata, has the toes and claws of the front 

 feet turned inwards and upwards, and thus walks on the 

 outer side of the feet; it is most likely that had this 

 animal been found in the state of, and known only as, a 

 fossil, we should have regarded this formation of the feet 

 as admirably adapted to climb trees, a habit up to the 

 present time Unrecorded by personal observation of the 

 living creature, although in the British Museum we have 

 a familiar example of that supposed accomplishment in 

 the Monster Megatherium, a far less likely beast to ascend 

 the trees of the period than the great ant-eater of our 

 day. 



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