TANREC AND TUPAIA 
who handles the Centetes incautiously. It is really not 
far inferior to the hedgehog in spininess. In young 
stages it has definite bands of long spines down the body. 
Spines of course are a common feature of the whole race 
of insectivorous animals. They have, too, sharp teeth 
and well-developed canines. The bite of Centetes is a 
serious matter. It feeds upon earthworms chiefly. The 
Tendrec, Tanrec or Tenrec, as its various native aliases 
run, is one of the most prolific of mammals. It is said 
to produce twenty-one young at a birth. It has no tail 
and a very small brain, so small, indeed, that it is no 
larger in comparison to the skull than the extremely 
minute brains of certain extinct animals of the dim past 
belonging to quite other groups, and whose disappear- 
ance is perhaps partly to be explained by their lack of 
cunning. Measured by this standard the Tenrec is not 
long for this world. Few insectivores are to be seen at 
the Zoo. They do not readily lend themselves to cap- 
tivity. It is clear that moles and shrews are not suit- 
able exhibits. The Tupaia, however, a Malayan insec- 
tivora that seems to mimic a squirrel, is one of the few 
types that has been at the Zoo. 
ORDER EDENTATA 
This is a heterogeneous assemblage of peculiarly weird- 
looking beasts of doubtful relations to other mammals, 
and indeed to each other. Though it is plain enough 
from anatomical considerations, and from the analysis 
of extinct forms, that the sloth, American anteaters, and 
armadillos, form a closely related assemblage, it is not at 
all plain that these have any relation whatever to the 
Manis and the Orycteropus of the Old World, or that the 
two latter are in any way related to each other. Why 
then, it may fairly be asked, are all those creatures placed 
in one order, Edentata. The reasons in truth are of a 
negative character, and are simply an expression of the 
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