The Hifiory of ANIMALS, 
Dafypus cingulo fimplku 3^t)C 
The Dafypus , with a fingle belt . 
This is a fingular and beautiful creature : the body is about nine inches in length, 
and five in breadth, and is covered by nature with a kind of coat of mail, or pointed 
armour, the fubftance of which refembles tortoife-fhell in fome degree, but is much 
more firm and hard : the head is fmall, and of an oblong form ; it is broad and flat¬ 
ted on the crown, and thence becomes gradually narrower to the extremity, where it 
is very fmall and {harp: the eyes are fmall ; the ears are about half an inch long, pa¬ 
tulous, and diftant about an inch and a quarter from one another; the noftrils are 
wide, the mouth is fmall: the neck is fhort; the body is of a flatted figure, but 
fomewhat prominent on the back; the tail is abbut four inches long, and is flender ; 
the legs are very fhort, and the feet large ; the toes remarkably long. 
The head, the back, the fides, and the thighs are all covered with a cruftaceous and 
firm armature, which extends itfelf alfo over the tail: the coverings of the head and 
of the legs are compofed of fquammas or fcales of a roundifh figure, and of about a 
quarter of an inch in diameter: the neck is covered with a fingle lamina, compofed of 
many fmall fruftules of a fquare figure : the fhoulders are covered with a compages of 
vaft multitudes of fquare legments of fcales; the covering of the back, from the 
fhoulders to the tail, is compofed of eighteen moveable laminae or plates, connected by 
intermediate cartilages or membranes ; the anterior laminae are compofed only of fquare 
pieces or fcales; the hinder ones of mixt fquare and round ones: the farther part of 
the covering at the tail is of a parabolic figure ; the anterior part of the tail is covered 
with fix annular laminae, compofed of fmall, fquare fcales; the hinder part of it is co¬ 
vered only with fcales not arranged with laminae at all: the bread: and belly are 
naked. 
This is a native of many parts of America, and is often brought over dried to us* 
All the late authors have delcribed it ; they call it Tatu Muftelinus, the Weafel Ar¬ 
madillo. 
Dafypus cingulis fix. 
The Dafypus , with fix belts . 
This is a larger fpecies than the former, and not lefs fingular or beautiful; it is of 
the bignefs of a young pig, and is not unlike one in form: the head is exactly of the 
hog-kind; the forehead is large and deprefled ; the fnout is flender and fmall,but obtufe* 
the eyes are fmall, and funk deep in the head : the ears are fhort, of a brown colour, 
patulous at their bale, and naked ; the mouth is fmall ; the tongue is narrow and 
pointed, and the teeth are about eighteen in each jaw : the neck is fhort and thick 3 
the body is corpulent, thick, and elevated on the back : the tail is fhort 5 the legs alfo 
are fhort, and the feet have fomewhat of the appearance of the human hand. 
The head, the whole body, and the tail are covered with a kind of coat of mail 1 
it is of a bony ftru&ure, and is compofed in an elegant manner of fcales: behind the 
head there are two joints, thefe ferve for the motions of the neck; on the back there 
are feven of thefe divifions, at which the fcales are joined by a brown fkin, that fhews 
itfelf between them ; thefe ferve for the giving way to the motions of the back, as the 
others do to thofe of the neck; the reft of the covering is entire: the breaft, belly, 
and throat are without any of this armature; the fkin of thefe parts is naked, only 
that there grow certain hairs at a fmall diftance from one another; thefe are of a fin¬ 
ger’s breadth long, and of a white colour : there are alfo fome hairs of this kind dif- 
pofed in manner of whifkers about the mouth and the fkin, between the feveral fcales 
of the armature, alfo has many of the fame kind growing from it. 
The legs are covered with a flighter armature; the tail is very thick at it’s origin, 
but it grows gradually fmaller to the extremity. 
This 
