name Armadillo. The shields, as well as the
bands, are composed of numerous, many-sided
plates, placed side by side like paving-stones, but
without any motion among themselves, except a
limited degree of pliancy during life from the
thinness of the whole. The transverse bands,
however, connected by the skin, allow of free
motion. The under parts, as well as the limbs,
are covered with a thick grained skin, roughened
by hard warts or tubercles, from which arise a few
bristly hairs. The joints of the back-plates are
also provided with long hairs, and a considerable
fringe of the same grows from beneath the lateral
edges of the bucklers. The tail is either grained
like the under parts, or, more generally, encased
in rings, resembling the back-plates.
The Armadillos are furnished with molar teeth alone, which vary in number in the different genera, never being less than twenty-six, in the whole, and in one species even amounting to ninety-eight. They are detached, those of one jaw fitting into the interstices of the other, as in the Dolphins. They are constructed on the same model as those of the preceding Families.
The animals of the present Family are confined to South America, where they feed on farinaceous roots, on carrion, and on ants, the dwellings of which they tear away with their powerful claws. They burrow with amazing rapidity, so as to disappear in the earth before they can be seized when suddenly surprised. They have, more or less perfectly, the power of rolling themselves up into a ball.
