the country. The flesh is said to resemble that of
a sucking-pig.
Azara has strikingly illustrated the unerring precision with which the Armadillo is able to push his mining operations in a given direction. "My friend Noséda," says he, "having arranged a trap for the purpose of taking chibigouzous (?), and having placed in it, by way of bait, a cock, with a small quantity of maize to support him, it so happened that a few grains of maize fell through between the boards which formed the bottom of the trap. An Armadillo arrived during the night, and wishing to get at the maize thus accidentally spilt, opened a trench or burrow at some distance from the trap, and without deviating a hair’s breadth from the straight line of his direction, pushed it on to the very spot where the grain had fallen, and possessed himself of the booty."
An animal of burrowing habits, the Aardvark of South Africa (Orycteropus capensis, Geoff.), though by its anatomy it seems to be related to the present Family more nearly than to the following, forms evidently a link of connexion between the two. It is clothed with scanty hair, feeds on ants, has a long slender muzzle, and a tongue in some degree extensile: but on the other hand the jaws are furnished with molar teeth. These are, it is true, of most singular structure, being simple cylinders without roots, and therefore always growing, covered with a coat of enamel on the crown, which when worn down reveals the interior of the tooth pierced with numerous small canals, running through its length, so that the teeth of this animal have been compared to pieces of cane cut across. The general figure of the Aard-vark
