ANT-EATER 



119 



ready, for a small reward, to get me a Tamandua. But 

 one day he came to me in great distress with the news 

 that his favourite dog, Atrevido, had been caught in the 

 grip of an ant-eater, and was killed. We hastened to 

 the place, and found the dog was not dead, but severely 

 torn by the claws of the animal, which itself was mortally 

 wounded, and was now relaxing its grasp. 



The habits of the Myrmecophaga jubata are now pretty 

 well known. It is not uncommon in the drier forests of 

 the Amazons valley, but is not found, I believe, in the 

 Ygapo, or flooded lands. The Brazilians call the species 

 the Tamandua bandeira, or the Banner Ant-eater, the 

 term banner being applied in allusion to the curious 

 colouration of the animal, each side of the body having 

 a broad oblique stripe half -gray and half -black, which 

 gives it some resemblance to a heraldic banner. It has 

 an excessively long slender muzzle, and a worm-like ex- 

 tensile tongue. Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The 

 claws are much elongated, and its gait is very awkward. 

 It lives on the ground, and feeds on termites, or white 

 ants, the long claws being employed to pull in pieces the 

 solid hillocks made by the insects, and the long flexible 

 tongue to lick them up from the crevices. All the other 

 species of this singular genus are arboreal. I met with 

 four species altogether. One was the Myrmecophaga 

 tetradactyla ; the two others, more curious and less 

 known, were very small kinds, called Tamandua-i. Both 

 are similar in size — ten inches in length, exclusive of the 

 tail — and in the number of the claws, having two of 

 unequal length to the anterior feet, and four to the hind 

 feet. One species is clothed with grayish-yellow silky 

 hair ; this is of rare occurrence. The other has a fur of 

 a dingy brown colour, without silky lustre. One was 

 brought to me alive at Caripi, having been caught by an 

 Indian, clinging motionless inside a hollow tree. I kept 

 it in the house about twenty-four hours. It had a moder- 

 ately long snout, curved downwards, and extremely small 

 eyes. It remained nearly all the time without motion, 

 except when irritated, in which case it reared itself on 

 its hind legs from the back of a chair to which it clung, 

 and clawed out with its fore paws like a cat. Its manner 

 of clinging with its claws, and the sluggishness of its 

 motions, gave it a great resemblance to a sloth. It 

 uttered no sound, and remained all night on the spot 



