ANT-EATERS AND SLOTHS 
159 
The feature which comes next in oddity is 
the big, fleshy tail, covered with an enormous 
brush of coarse, wavy hair. The popular belief 
in South America that the Ant-Eater sweeps up 
ants with its tail in order to devour them in a 
wholesale way, is quite erroneous, for the tail 
serves a very different purpose. Its use is to 
cover the owner when asleep. When the animal 
lies down to sleep, the tail is flung over the body, 
and the long, wavy hair forms a thatch so thick 
that no other portion of the creature is visible. 
It looks like a pile of brown hay. A medium- 
sized specimen that lived for about a year in the 
New York Zoological Park measured 12 inches in 
length of head, the neck and body, 31 inches, 
and tail vertebrae, 26 inches. 
In its wild state, the Ant-Eater feeds upon 
ants, which it devours in great quantities. In 
fact, Nature has provided this Family of animals 
to restrict the number of plague-like ants which, 
even with Ant-Eaters in the forests, are entirely 
too numerous. Its long and powerful front claws 
are very useful in tearing open ant-hills, and dis- 
secting decayed logs, but as a means of defence 
they are quite inadequate. Neither are they 
well-formed to walk upon. The tongue is very 
long and slender, and can be thrust out 9 inches ; 
but. contrary to innumerable misstatements, it 
is as clean and smooth as the tongue of a dog, 
and is not coated with sticky saliva, or anything 
like it. 
This animal is very clumsy on its feet, and 
being defenceless, unable to climb, and too large 
to live in a burrow, it is a wonder that all the 
Great Ant-Eaters were not killed and devoured 
long ago, by jaguars and pumas. Although 
quite rare, even in South America, a goodly num- 
ber of specimens find their way into captivity. 
Until settled down sensibly to a diet of chopped 
meat, milk, and eggs, they are difficult to keep 
alive. Our specimen persistently refused to 
eat ants. 
The Tamandua 1 is a smaller Ant-Eater than 
the preceding species, of tree-climbing habits, 
with a proportionately shorter head, no long 
hair on its tail, and extremely large front claws. 
It is found in Venezuela, the Guianas, Brazil, 
and in fact the greater portion of the region of 
tropical forests on this continent south of Mexico. 
Its tail is prehensile, or grasping, and in climbing 
1 Tam-an'du-a tet-ra-dac' ty-la. 
is used almost constantly. One of these creat- 
ures which I once kept in South America as a 
camp pet, became very friendly, and even affec- 
tionate, and when permitted would climb all over 
me, as if I were a new and very soft species of 
tree. In the accompanying picture, the Taman- 
dua is represented by the small central figure. 
Its head-and-body length is about 24 inches, tail, 
18 inches. 
THE SLOTH FAMILY. 
Bradypodidae. 
The sloths inhabit the New World only; and 
the so-called “sloth ” of Ceylon is not a sloth, but 
a slow lemur. All the real sloths belong to the 
Order of Edentates, and inhabit the tropical 
forests of Central and South America, from Costa 
Rica southward. The sloths are not really 
toothless, for they have five pairs of teeth in the 
upper jaw, and four in the lower. 
One cannot look at a live sloth without think- 
ing that Nature has but poorly equipped this 
animal to live in this murderous world. Its 
countenance is a picture of complete and far- 
reaching stupidity, its bodily form the acme of 
four-footed helplessness. It can neither fight, 
hide, nor run away. It has no defensive armor, 
nor even spines. It is too large to live in a hole in 
a tree, and too weak to dig a burrow in the earth. 
It is too tired to walk on its feet, as the monkeys 
do, so throughout its queer life it hangs under- 
neath the branches of the trees in which it finds 
its food. Its feet are merely four hooks by which 
to hang. Since it feeds wholly upon leaves and 
buds, it lives in the tropical forests, where green 
leaves are plentiful and cheap. 
The sloth dwells only in the tree-tops, among 
the monkeys and macaws. On the ground, it 
would be more helpless than a tortoise, and easily 
killed by any carnivore, or wild pig. In the tree- 
tops, it escapes the climbing ocelot by living far 
out on the ends of the branches ; and it is fortu- 
nate for him that hawks, owls, and eagles are 
scarce in the forests wherein he dwells. 
At this point, however, it is a pleasure to point 
out that Nature has done one special thing for 
the preservation of these odd creatures. The 
hair of a sloth is long, wavy and coarse, rather 
more like grass than hair, and in color and gen- 
eral appearance it is the best imitation of tree- 
