CLASS I. MAMMALIA: OKDER 8. EDENTATA. 473 
and readily indicates his path, to the hunter ; though, when hard pressed, he increases his pace 
to a kind of slow gallop, yet his greatest velocity never half equals the ordinary running of a man. 
So great is his stupidity, that those who encounter him in the woods or plains may drive hira be- 
fore them by merely pushing him with a stick, so long at least as he is not compelled to proceed 
beyond a moderate gallop ; but if pressed too hard, or urged to extremity, he becomes obstinate, 
sits up on his hind-quarters like a bear, and defends himself with his powerful claws. Like that 
animal, his usual, and indeed only mode of assault, is by seizing his adversary with his fore-paws, 
wrapping his arms round him, and endeavoring by this means to squeeze him to death. His 
great strength and powerful muscles would easily enable him to accomplish his purpose in this 
respect, even against the largest animals of his native forests, were it but guided by ordinary in- 
telligence, or accompanied with a common degree of activity. But in these qualities he is infe- 
rior to most other creatures ; nevertheless, there is no reason to doubt that he does sometimes 
thus defend himself against the larger and more valorous animals which he meets in his native 
haunts. 
Genus TAMANDUA ; Tamandua. — Of this there is a single species, the Tamandua, T. tetra- 
dactyla, called the Little Ant-Eater by the English, and Fourmilier by the French : it resem- 
bles the preceding in form, but is much smaller, being only two feet two inches long, and the tail 
sixteen inches. The hair is short and shiny, and resembles both silk and wool. The color is very 
variable, and hence there are several varieties ; some naturalists regard them as different species. 
The eyes are minute ; the ears small and round; the body long and cylindrical; the legs short 
and robust ; the tail round and attenuated, covered with very short hair throughout its greater 
part, but naked underneath toward the point, and strongly prehensile. 
The Tamandua is an inhabitant of the thick primeval forests of tropical America ; it is never 
found on the ground, but resides exclusively in trees, where it lives upon termites, honey, and 
even, according to the report of Azara, bees, which in those countries form their hives among the 
loftiest branches of the forest, and having no sting, are more readily despoiled of their honey than 
their congeners of our own climate. AVhen about to sleep, it hides its muzzle in the fur of its 
breast, falls on its belly, and letting its fore-feet hang down on each side, wraps the whole tightly 
round with its tail. The female, as in the case of the great ant-eater, has but two pectoral 
mammae, and produces but a single cub at a birth, which she carries about with her on her shoul- 
ders for the first three or four months. The young are at first exceedingly deformed and ugly, 
and of a uniform straw-color. 
Brisson thinks an animal which is named Fourmilier a queue anneUe^ or the Ring-tailed Ant- 
Eater, is a distinct species. 
The Genus MYRMIDON: Myrmidon — called Didactyles by F. Cuvier, Dionyx by Is. Geofi"- 
roy, and Cyclothure by Gray — presents a single species, the Two-toed Ant-Eater, M. didactylus. 
This animal is of the size of a small squirrel, the body being six inches long and the tail seven. 
In form it resembles the tamandua ; it is of a straw-color, tinged with maroon on the shoulders ; 
its habits are nocturnal ; it lives in the trees, produces one cub at a birth, and feeds on insects. 
Like the other ant-eaters it is destitute of teeth, has a prehensile tail, two claws in front and four 
behind, and sits on its haunches in feeding. The inhabitants of Surinam, never seeing it eat when 
captured, and observing it to be frequently licking its paws, call it Kissing -Hand. It is found in 
Guiana and Brazil. 
THE MANIDES OE PANGOLIJNS. 
The animals of this family, Avhicli are sometimes called the Scaly A^it-Eaters^ are not less pe- 
culiar in their external appearance than are the armadillos, for the upper part and sides of the 
body, as well as the legs and tail, are protected by numerous horny scales, imbricated one upon 
the other like the tiles of a roof, and implanted in the skin like nails. Their name Pangolins is 
said to be derived from the Javanese, Pangoeling, which means, an animal that rolls itself into a 
hall ; in Bungalore the name is Badjar Kita, which means Reptiles of stone. They are without 
teeth, have an extensile tongue and two pectoral mammse, subsist on ants and termites, are slow 
of motion, and have five toes on each foot. 
Vol. L— 60 
