THE PANGOLIN AND THE ANTS 
with meat. It will attack, and literally saw in two with 
the sharp edges of its carapace, a living snake. 
THE PANGOLIN 
The pangolin is a corruption of the Malay word, 
“ Tagiling,”’ which is the vernacular name for an animal 
known to zoologists by the scientific name of Manis, and 
to us in general, as the scaly ant-eater. The genus 
Manis, of which there are some seven species, inhabits 
both Asia and Africa. It looks, as it has been well ex- 
pressed, “ like an animated spruce fir cone.’’ The scales 
in fact with which it is thickly beset are brown and 
withered-looking, and loosely attached at the base in 
quite a vegetable fashion. They suggest that a good 
shake will scatter them. Nevertheless, the scales are 
very firm, and offer a double protection to their possessor. 
When harried and worried by a dog or other carnivore 
searching a meal, the scaly ant-eater rolls itself up into 
something like a ball, and presents a hard smooth surface 
to the enemy. Should the latter attempt a nearer in- 
vestigation of the Manis, the scales contract still closer 
to the body, and often carry with them a fragment of 
flesh from the aggressor’s nose, pinched off by their sharp 
edges. In two parts of the world, namely in Japan and 
in the Malay countries—perhaps, indeed, the legend has 
spread from the one place to the other—the Manis is 
believed to make another use of its scales. It erects 
them and then pretends to be dead. The inquisitive 
ant, in the fashion which everybody knows, wanders in 
multitudes over the body, and creeps between the scales. 
When a sufficient number of ants have thus begun to 
investigate the Manis, the latter closes his scales, and 
entering the nearest piece of water again erects his scales, 
‘and laps up the ants as they float out. The food of this 
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