WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 
once an unmistakable and well-defined diversity. The 
late Professor Quekett first pointed out the structure of 
the tissues of the bones of reptiles, as distinguished from 
these parts of birds and mammals, the warm blood. The 
mode of reproduction, and suckling the helpless and blind 
young, exhibit, in the armadillos, a wide contrast with the 
egg-laying, cold-blooded tortoises, whose young, like all 
other reptiles, are produced in a perfect condition, and are 
able to provide for themselves as soon as they are hatched. 
It would be useless to proceed calling attention to many 
other differences, for many missing links will have to be 
found and supplied ere the armadillos can be united to 
the tortoises. A little three-banded armadillo {Tolypcutes 
conurus) that was exhibited in the Zoological Gardens, 
was noticed to walk on the points of the long claws of its 
fore-feet, and that mode of progression suggested to the 
observer the probability that some of the monster eden- 
tate animals known only by their fossil remains, progressed 
in that manner instead of tree climbing, as they have been 
represented by their describers, who could not find the 
bones of the feet and toes suited to walking on the 
ground. The great {Myrmecopha pibata), 
of the Order Edentata, has the toes and claws of the front 
feet turned inwards and upwards, and thus walks on the 
outer side of the feet ; it is most likely that had this 
animal been found in the state of, and known only as, a 
fossil, we should have regarded this formation of the feet 
as admirably adapted to climb trees, a habit up to the 
present time unrecorded by personal observation of the 
living creature, although in the British Museum we have 
a familiar example of that supposed accomplishment in 
the Monster Megatherium, a far less likely beast to ascend 
the trees of the period than the great ant-eater of our 
day. 
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