NOTES ON THE HAIRY AKMADILLO. 343 
mimetic name ‘‘ Touc-toue.” I was still, however, unable to 
identify the animal. Presently I saw the earth at the base of a 
mound become disturbed and sprays of earth fly upwards upon 
the mound, resembling the showers of earth ejected by a terrier 
in a rabbit-hole. The sprays ceased after about half a minute, 
and a small head was popped up and instantly withdrawn, 
leaving me still unable to identify the owner. The fact was that 
I was expecting some furry animal ‘like a rat,’ as the Guachos 
had described the animal to me. I asked one of these men to 
get a spade and dig one of the animals out for me, but he 
explained that the tunnels ramify in all directions for thirty or 
forty yards, and that the animals can burrow faster than the 
spade can follow. However, he offered to catch one for me that 
night, and next morning brought me a specimen of the Hairy 
Armadillo. 
I learnt later that they are easily caught by men who watch 
for them near their burrows at night when they come forth to 
feed ; in the daytime they rarely show themselves. The name 
Armadillo is not known in the “‘camp,” as the wild country is 
called, and few people know the term even in Buenos Aires, 
where it is called ‘‘ Meluta.” 
I brought my captive on board and installed him in a barrel 
half filled with sand; every day throughout the homeward 
passage I took him fora run about the deck and gave him his 
dinner. As to food nothing came amiss—any boiled vegetables ; 
ship biscuit, which he easily crunched with his horny jaws; 
tinned meat; toast; rice-pudding; but what he liked best was 
raw meat, which he would come and take from my hand if he 
was near enough to smell it. His power of sight seemed very 
poor, and he always seemed to notice the proximity of food by 
scent. He grew fairly tame, and when I used to visit him in 
his barrel to take him out for his daily run he would scramble 
towards me with a great display of excitement. 
The natives say, and I think rightly, that the sound “‘ Touc-a- 
touc”’ is made by stamping or digging in the burrows. The only 
vocal sound I ever heard my captive utter was a snuffling whine 
of delight when I gave him slugs and snails (Limax maximus and 
Helix aspersa) in my garden in England. The preference for 
snails is odd, because there are no land mollusca on the arid 
