20 LITTLE FOLKS 
Then his nose is half as long as his body, so it can get into the 
ant-houses, you see. He has no teeth (he don't need them to eat 
such food with) and his tongue is small, and very long and sticky, 
and darts in and out so fast you can hardly see it, snatching up 
dozens of ants every time. 
He has to be quick to get enough of them, for ants are not 
lazy themselves, you know. 
When he lies down he looks droll enough. He is four or fivq 
feet long, and he tucks his long nose under his arm (suppose your 
nose was long enough to tuck under your arm !), and then just throws 
his tail over himself, like a spread. Not an ant can get through that 
cover, if it wants to. 
He looks like a heap of coarse hay. I should think he'd 
smother himself. He's fond of the woods, and generally goes out 
at night for his food. 
Baby Ant Bears — droll little creatures they are, too — always 
ride on their Mamma's back, wherever she goes. 
This curious fellow lives in Brazil. Perhaps you'd like to know 
by what charming and graceful name the wise men call him. I can 
write it for you, because I found it in the wise books ; but I'd like 
to hear you pronounce it — Myrmecophaga jubata ! 
I guess we'll leave this name for the books, and call him simply 
the Ant Bear. 
He's a very useful animal. But for him the white ants would 
clear the country of everything, I should think. They eat every 
imaginable substance — food, clothes, paper, and even wood. One 
does not know what they are about, till his chairs and tables fall to 
pieces, and he finds the inside all eaten out ; or on opening a book 
in his library, he finds every leaf eaten out, and only the covers left 
standing"; or his floor suddenly caves in, and drops the whole family 
into the cellar, when he finds every timber and board eaten hollow. 
They are intolerable pests, and, of course, every one in Brazil 
feels very friendly to our comical bear with a bedquilt. 
He lives, while at home, on ants ; but he can eat other things. 
One that I heard of was kept a pet, and when a few months old 
would eat several dozen eggs a day, besides some chopped meat. 
I wonder how many ants he would have to eat to equal that 
amount of food. 
