SCALY ANT-EATER. 
79 
rough, bony palate, ami so crush the shells of the 
mollusks on which it feeds. 
Seen from the porcelain pagoda, these verdurous 
ponds appear as oases in a desert of tiles. 
Two living specimens of the scaly ant-eater 
(Manis javaiiica) having come under my notice, 
some account of its habits, as far as I was 
enabled to make them out, may be acceptable. The 
first was a female, and rejoiced in the sobriquet 
of “ Scales.’' She was crepuscular, and remained 
coiled up in a ball during the day, secure in her 
scaly panoply. At the approach of night, however, 
she grew lively. A creature whose habits require 
to be studied by the aid of a dark lantern, must 
needs be interesting even to the most incurious 
observer ; and a lizard-like mammal, whose every 
movement and attitude is probably a living illus^ 
tration of those great extinct quadrupeds which 
once peopled the earth before man was created, 
must surely have the power of arresting the atten- 
tion, if not of stimulating the imagination, of all 
who desire to penetrate the secrets of Nature. 
