484 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
The Tricuspid Pangolin ( Mam's tricuspis ) is African in its habitat, and 
has three rows, each seven-banded. .The Giant Pangolin (. Pholidotus giganteus) 
is about five feet in length, is armored throughout, and flourishes greatly on 
African soil. The Indian Pangolin (. Pholidotus indiciis ) is, likewise, a giant, 
and is represented abroad as well as at home, by the Chinese Pangolin ( Pho¬ 
lidotus dalmanni). 
RODENTIA. 
The Rodents, or Gnawing Animals (ftodentia), form a very numerous class 
of mammals, ranking, as judged by their organization, next above the edentata 
or toothless animals. Though predominantly frugivorous, or at least insecti¬ 
vorous, they, in some species, have learned to become omnivorous. This state¬ 
ment furnishes the most suitable occasion for the remark, that the habits of 
animals, as well as of human beings, are greatly modified by long-continued 
civilization, so that none but a naturalist would at all times suspect a com¬ 
mon ancestry. Hence, the reader must, so 
far as he can, divest himself of prejudices 
based upon an acquaintance with an animal 
in its domesticated state only, and leave his 
mind free and unbiased for the considera¬ 
tion of evidence, which it is the office of 
The Living World to submit. If one 
stops to reflect he will at once appreciate 
the many and marked differences between 
the best type of the American and the 
representatives of the Caucasian race who 
inhabit northern Africa; nay, he will at 
once appreciate the wide differences which 
distinguish the dweller on the northern 
Atlantic coast and the native of the Gulf 
States. Hence, he will be ready to see 
that the habitudes, resulting from long- 
continued domestication, will utterly sepa¬ 
rate an animal from his congeners, whose 
lives and hereditary traits know nothing beyond the savage freedom of their 
natural state. But, still again, the rodents emphasize the fact that variety 
in the midst of unity lends strength to the scientific hypothesis of evolution, 
while relating this «to the Genetic account of the creation. Finally, the 
succession, in order of time, strengthens the position that each class appears 
when the earth is ready for its services, and becomes extinct when the work 
which it had to perform has been completed. This extinction, be it noted, is 
like the creation of a new class or species, not accomplished by some sudden 
suspension of the laws which a beneficent and all-wise Creator has assigned to 
the inhabitants of our earth as the normal manifestations of their life. Hence, 
while we can even now find fossil progenitors of the rodents , they differ from 
their progeny, and the descendants represent the greatest variety of develop¬ 
ment. Those forms of the rodents , which still serve a useful purpose in ren¬ 
dering the earth more habitable for the classes above them, and for the success¬ 
ful dominion of man, have shown an adaptability which has enabled them to 
change with the conditions surrounding them, and to continue their really 
ANT-EATER IN ATTITUDE OE DEFENCE. 
