MAMMALIA. 
126 
The Ant-eaters {Myrmecophaga, Lin.) — 
Are well covered with hair, have a long muzzle which terminates by a small toothless mouth, from 
which is protruded a filiform tongue, susceptible of considerable elongation, and which they insinuate I 
into ant-hills and the nests of the Termites, whence these insects are withdrawn hy being entangled in i 
the viscid saliva that covers it. Their fore-nails, strong and trenchant, which vary in number according 
to the species, enable them to tear open the nests of the Termites, and also furnish them with effective 
means of defence. When at rest, these nails are always half-bent inwards, resembling a callosity of the 
tarsus ; hence these animals can only bring the side of the foot to the ground. Their stomach is 
simple, and muscular towards its outlet, their intestinal canal moderate, and without a ccecum.* 
The members of this genus are peculiar to the warm and temperate regions of South America, and 
produce but one young at a birth, which is carried on the back. 
The Maned or Great Ant-eater {M. jubata, 
Auct.), upwards of four feet in length, with 
four anterior claws and five hind ones, and a 
tail furnished with long hairs vertically directed, 
both above and beneath. Its colour is greyish- 
brown, with an oblique black band bordered with 
white on each shoulder. It is the largest species 
of Ant-eater ; and stated [but erroneously] to de- 
fend itself from the Jaguar. It inhabits low places, 
never ascends trees, and moves slowly. 
The Tamandua {M. tamandua, Cuv. ; Myrm. 
tetradactyla and M. tridactyla, Lin.).— Figure 
and feet of the preceding, but not half the - 
size ; the tail scantily furnished with hair, and 
naked and prehensile at the tip, enabling the animal to suspend itself to the branches of trees. Some of them are 
of a yellowish-grey, with an oblique band on the shoulder, that is only visible at a certain light ; others are fulvous 
with a black band ; some fulvous, with the band, crupper, and belly black ; and others again black altogether. It 
is not yet known whether these differences indicate species. i 
The Two-toed Ant-eater {Myrm. didactyla, Lin.).— Size of a Rat, with fulvous woolly hair, and a russet line along 
the back, the tail prehensile and naked at the tip, and only two claws anteriorly, one of them very large, and four 
to the hind-foot. [Were it not for the interposition of the preceding species, it is doubtful whether the author 
would have arranged this curious little animal in the same minimum group as M. jubata : it has been sepa- 
rated by some naturalists ; and its close affinity with the Sloths is very obvious.] 
The Pangolins {Manis, Lin.), — 
Are also without teeth, have an extensile tongue, and subsist on Ants and Termites in the manner of I 
the Taman duas ; but their body, limbs, and tail, are covered with large trenchant imbricated scales, ;]j 
which they elevate in rolling themselves into a ball, when they wish to defend themselves against an 
enemy. All their feet have five toes. Their stomach is slightly divided in the middle part of it, and 
they have no coecum. They occur only in the ancient Continent. 
[Four or five species are now ascertained, inhabiting Asia and Africa, and varying from three to five feet in | 
length]. The Short-tailed Pangolin {M. pentadactyla, Lin.), is the Phattagen of ^lian. An unguinal phalanx has 
been found, in the Palatinate, of a Pangolin that must have been twenty feet long, or more. (See Cuv., Oss. foss. 
vol. V. part 1, p. 193.) jli 
The third tribe of Edentata comprehends animals which M. GeofFroy designates |j 
Monotremata, il 
On account of their having but one external opening for all their excretions. Their genera- 
tive organs present extraordinary anomalies : though without a ventral pouch, they have 
nevertheless the same supernumerary bones to the pubis as the Marsupiata j the vasa defe- d 
rentia terminate in the urethra, which opens into the cloaca ; the penis, when retracted, is 
drawn into a sheath, which opens by an orifice near the termination of the cloaca. The only 
matrix consists of two canals or trunks, each of which opens separately and by a double m 
orifice into the urethra, which is very large, and terminates in the cloaca. As yet naturalists » 
are not agreed as to the existence of their mammsefi noi* whether these animals are viviparous 
* Daubenton has described two small appendages in the M. di- j t M. Meckel considers as such two glandular masses which he^^’ 
ductyla, which, in strictness, may be considered as cceca. I have | found greatly developed in a female Ornithorynchus. These M. Geof-^g^i 
satisfied myself, however, that they do not exist in M. tamandua. 1 froy deems to be rather glands, analogous to those on the flanks of the’-^^ 
