482 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
astonishment at so unseemly an interruption of the dolce far niente of so 
harmless a being. Dicken’s fat boy, “Joe,” was not so unruffled, so wholly 
limited to the pleasures of eating and sleeping as is the sloth. In this rushing, 
bustling, unresting age of ours, 
one can almost find relief by 
giving himself to a few mo¬ 
ments of comradeship with the 
sloth, even though the sloth be 
in the pages of a book—for the 
sloth is quite as much alive 
there as in his natural condition. 
Walt Whitman wanted to “ lean 
and loaf,” but it would be much 
more restful to buy a sloth 
and watch its entire contentment 
with a masterly inactivity. As 
has been said, the ai makes night 
musical by uttering from time 
to time the most hair-raising 
and supernatural moans or cries, 
which sound as if a lost spirit 
was writhing in extreme agony, 
or as if some demented creature, 
uttering the most lugubrious 
great ant-bear ( Myrmecophaga jubata). 
forest, was otherwise 
lost in the pathless 
lamentations. 
The Two-toed Sloth, 
called the Unau ( Cholccpus 
didactylus) when of the Bra¬ 
zilian species, and the Cen¬ 
tral American Two-toed 
Sloth {Cholccpus hoffmanni ), 
save the waste of energy 
required even in uttering a 
moan. The unau is about 
two and a half feet in length, 
and is grayish-brown in color¬ 
ing. It is quite a remarkable 
climber, wearing the soles of 
its feet upon the inside. Lo¬ 
comotion on the ground is 
very laborious, as the unau 
has to lie on its back and 
pull itself along in a hand¬ 
over-hand fashion. 
The Great Ant-eater, or 
Ant-bear {Myrmecophaga ju¬ 
bata), is a queer-looking creature covered with long brown hair which at times 
is sprinkled with white or gray. From the throat a singular blank triangular 
Its tail is so liberally provided with long hair 
GREAT ANT-EATER AND ARMADILLO LORICATA. 
with 
band runs across the shoulders. 
