animal armour. What wonderful
opportunities exist to-day in the great museums for studying the
different kinds of animal armour, for those who are interested!

The scaly ant-eater, who is at home in Africa and Asia, is one of the
most unusual and original types of mail-clad animals. He might be
compared to a wolf in outline, covered from head to tail in huge, horny
plates, which look like immense finger-nails overlapping each other. His
head sharpens out into a long, narrow snout, which contains a sticky,
worm-like tongue, and this he can use with great rapidity and effect in
raiding an ant-hill. He drops his tongue over the entrance, and the ants
attempt to crawl over it and are glued to it. He walks in a very unique
way by going upon the backs of his feet. This preserves his wonderful
claws for bursting open ants' nests, as his chief food consists of these
tiny insects and their eggs.

A cousin of the scaly ant-eater, the great ant-eater of South America,
has the same general habits of his near-kinsman. He has an immense bushy
tail with which some naturalists claim he sweeps up ants. This is not
true, however; he uses his tail, when he lies down, to cover himself.
The hairs of the tail part in such a manner as to fall over the body
like a thatched roof, protecting it from rain and storm alike.

A part of the head and under portion of this ant-eater's body are
unprotected, and this is why he rolls himself up like a ball when danger
is near. In this position, his scales stand out in such a way as to make
a complete row of sharp points, as uninviting as the wires on a barbed
wire fence. Yet, it is claimed that certain of his enemies, like the
leopard, know his one great weakness--a terror of being wet--and often
make him uncoil by rolling him into the water. His coat of hard covering
is really compact masses of hardened hair drawn out to sharp dagger
points, and might be likened to pine cones endued with power. Through
ages of experience, the scaly ant-eater has learned that even his
powerful coat of protection is not altogether a success in life's
battles, and from time to time his armour has been made lighter and
lighter, and because he has been so slow in making the necessary
changes, he is to-day very scarce, and able only by the greatest caution
to drag out a dull existence as a nocturnal and burrowing animal. It
would seem that with such powerful protection as he originally had, he
would have outlived the puny ar