ORDER EDENTATA. 1 29 1 



cently nothing was known of the palaeontological history of the 

 family, but Dr Forsyth-Major has recorded a species from the Lower 

 Pliocene of the isle of Samos, in the Turkish Archipelago, distin- 

 guished from the existing species by the larger size of the lateral 



Lateral view of the skull of Orycteropus capensis. Africa. Reduced. 



metatarsals. The occurrence of this species seems to point to the 

 conclusion that Asia was the original home of the family. 



Family Manid^. — The Pangolins (Mam's) of India and Africa 

 are distinguished from all other Mammals by the body being covered 

 superiorly with a coat of imbricated, horny, epidermal scales. 

 Teeth are absent ; the limbs are short and furnished with five digits, 

 of which the terminal claws are long, curved, and bifid at the extre- 

 mities. The humerus has an entepicondylar foramen, but there is 

 no third femoral trochanter, and clavicles are wanting. The large 

 Mam's gigantea of Western Africa is found in a fossil state in the 

 Pleistocene cave-deposits of Southern India ; while in the Lower 

 Pliocene of the isle of Samos we have a species three times the size 

 of the latter, which has been made the type of the genus PalcE07nanis. 

 A phalangeal from the Indian Siwaliks described as Mam's appears 

 to belong to Chalicotherium. 



Family Dasypodid^. — The Armadillos (fig. 1161) of South 

 America are characterised by the presence of a bony dorsal carapace, 

 composed of a series of dermal scutes, of which a certain number 

 are always arranged in movable bands, while the others may be 

 articulated together into solid scapular and pelvic bucklers, as in fig. 

 1 161. The frontal region of the skull also has a buckler; while 

 the tail is defended by rings or tubercles of bone. In the existing 

 genera the teeth are simply conical ; and in Tatusia all except the 

 last have milk predecessors. Many of the cervical vertebra? are 

 anchylosed together ; and the stout humerus has an entepicondylar 

 foramen, and the femur a third trochanter. The fore-feet are pro- 

 vided with very strong curved claws ; and, like the Manidce, the 

 existing forms are of burrowing habits. The Pleistocene cave- 

 deposits of Brazil yield remains of some existing and some extinct 



