are two new animals in the woods to-day,
and the one that you said couldn't swim, swims, and the one that you
said couldn't curl up, curls; and they've gone shares in their prickles,
I think, because both of them are scaly all over, instead of one being
smooth and the other very prickly; and, besides that, they are rolling
round and round in circles, and I don't feel comfy.'

'Son, son!' said Mother Jaguar ever so many times, graciously waving her
tail, 'a Hedgehog is a Hedgehog, and can't be anything but a Hedgehog;
and a Tortoise is a Tortoise, and can never be anything else.'

'But it isn't a Hedgehog, and it isn't a Tortoise. It's a little bit of
both, and I don't know its proper name.'

'Nonsense!' said Mother Jaguar. 'Everything has its proper name. I
should call it "Armadillo" till I found out the real one. And I should
leave it alone.'

So Painted Jaguar did as he was told, especially about leaving them
alone; but the curious thing is that from that day to this, O Best
Beloved, no one on the banks of the turbid Amazon has ever called
Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid anything except Armadillo. There are
Hedgehogs and Tortoises in other places, of course (there are some in my
garden); but the real old and clever kind, with their scales lying
lippety-lappety one over the other, like pine-cone scales, that lived on
the banks of the turbid Amazon in the High and Far-Off Days, are always
called Armadillos, because they were so clever.

So _that's_ all right, Best Beloved. Do you see?

[Illustration]

I'VE never sailed the Amazon,
I've never reached Brazil;
But the _Don_ and _Magdalena_,
They can go there when they will!

Yes, weekly from Southampton,
Great steamers, white and gold,
Go rolling down to Rio
(Roll down--roll down to Rio!)
And I'd like to roll to Rio
Some day before I'm old!

I've never seen a Jaguar,
Nor yet an Armadill--
O dilloing in his armour,
And I s'pose I never will,

Unless I go to Rio
These wonders to behold--
Roll down--roll down to Rio--
Roll really down to Rio!
Oh, I'd love to roll to Rio
Some day before I'm