Part 22 (1/2)
[175] _Gentleman's Magazine_, for June 1784, being the sixth number of vol. liv., pp. 412-414, ”Unnoticed Properties of that little animal the Hare.”
[176] ”History of England,” vol. vi. p. 486.
[177] Mark Lemon, ”Jest Book,” p. 59.
[178] Mark Lemon, ”Jest Book,” p. 182.
[179] Biography of S. Bisset in G. H. Wilson's ”Eccentric Mirror,” vol.
i., No. 3, p. 29.
[180] Published by Lord Lindsay in vol. iii. of his ”Lives of the Lindsays,” p. 387.
[181] ”Worthies of England,” vol. ii. p. 445 (ed. 1840).
SLOTH.
REVEREND SYDNEY SMITH ON THE SLOTH.
Few anecdotes can be published of this curious creature, though Waterton and Burch.e.l.l, or Dr Buckland, for him and his friend Bates, have recorded much that is interesting of its habits. The following bit is peculiarly happy: ”The sloth, in its wild state, spends its life in trees, and never leaves them but from force or accident. The eagle to the sky, the mole to the ground, the sloth to the tree; but what is most extraordinary, he lives not _upon_ the branches, but _under_ them. He moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps suspended, and pa.s.ses his life in suspense--like a young clergyman distantly related to a bishop.”[183]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Ant-Eater. (Myrmecophaga jabata).]
FOOTNOTES:
[182] Dr Hannah's ”Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D., L.L.D.,” vol. ii. p. 237.
THE GREAT ANT-EATER.
(_Myrmecophaga jubata_, L.[184])
A few months ago a handbill was distributed in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials, inviting the public to visit a ”wonderful animal fed with ants, and possessing strength to kill the lion, tiger, or any other animal under its claws.” We entered the miserable apartment where it was exhibited, and any spectator must at once have been struck with the creature's want of resemblance to any other he had ever seen. Its head so small, so long and slender; the straight, wiry, dry hair with which it was covered, and its singularly large and bushy tail, first attracted notice. A second glance showed its enormously thick fore-legs, and the claws of its feet turned in, so that it walked on the sides of its soles. Oken and St Hilaire would have said that it was ”all extremity.”
A cup, with the contents of one or two eggs, was brought, and it sucked them with great avidity, every now and then darting from its small mouth a very long tongue, which looked like a great, black worm, whisking about in the custard. One of its showmen told us that it had attacked the woman of the house the preceding day, and had scratched her arm.
Whether this was true or grossly exaggerated, we know not; but if so, we suspect that the woman herself must have been in fault, and not the inoffensive stranger.
On the payment of a handsome consideration to her owners, the poor captive was transferred from her unwholesome lodging in St Giles's, to the Gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park. And within the last few weeks her solitude has been cheered by the arrival of a companion from her native forests. The new-comer is in beautiful condition, though not nearly so large. He has a head decidedly shorter and stronger, and is probably not yet fully grown.
The great ant-eater seems to be scattered over a wide extent of South America--Guiana, Brazil, and Paraguay, being its places of abode. It is a stout animal, measuring from the end of the snout to the tip of the long tail six or seven feet, of which the tail takes nearly the half; so that the actual size of its body is much reduced. In Paraguay it is named _Nurumi_ or _Yogui_. The former name is altered from the native word for _small mouth_, and indicates a striking peculiarity in its structure. The Portuguese call it _Tamandua_; the Spaniards, _Osa hormiguero_ (_i.e._, ant-hill bear). In Paraguay it prefers sides of lakes where ants, at least termites or white ants, are abundant; but it also frequents woods. In Guiana, Mr Waterton found it chiefly ”in the inmost recesses of the forest,” where it ”seems partial to the low and swampy parts near creeks, where the troely tree grows.”[185] It sleeps a great deal, reclining on its side, as the visitor to the Gardens may frequently see it do, with its head between its fore-legs, joining its fore and hindfeet, and spreading the tail so as to cover the whole body. Huddled up under this thatch, it might almost be taken for a bundle of coa.r.s.e and badly dried hay. The tail is thickly covered with long hairs, placed vertically, the hairs draggling on the ground. When the creature is irritated, the tail is shaken straight and elevated. The natives of Paraguay, like other persecutors of harmlessness, kill every specimen they meet, so that the ant-eater gets rare, and so rare is it on the Amazon that Mr Wallace, who travelled there from 1848 to 1852, honestly tells us he never saw one. He heard, however, that during rain it turns its bushy tail over its head and stands still. The Indians, knowing this habit, when they meet an ant-eater, make a rustling noise among the leaves. The creature instantly turns up its tail, and is easily killed by the stroke of a stick on its little head.[186]
The ant-eater is slow in its movements--never attempting to escape. When hard pressed it stops, and, seated on its hind-legs, waits for the aggressor. Its object is to receive him between its fore-legs; and one has only to look at its arms and claws in order to fancy what a frightful squeeze it would give. Nothing but death, they say, will make the creature relax its grasp. It is a.s.serted that the jaguar--the tiger of South America, and the most formidable beast of the New World--dares not attack it. This Azara, with good reason, doubts. A single bite from a jaguar, or the stroke of his paw, would fracture an ant-eater's skull before it had time to turn round; for the movements of this edentate quadruped are as sluggish as those of the toothed carnivorous tyrant are rapid.
As seen in its handsome and roomy cage, the ant-eater gives us an impression of dulness and stupidity; and always smelling and listening and looking at the door where its keeper introduces its food, its mind, when awake, appears to be constantly occupied about ”creature comforts.”
In the course of the day it laps up with its darting tongue, and sucks in through its long taper snout a dozen eggs, and almost the whole of a rabbit, chopped into a fine mince-meat. With such dainty fare, and with the anxious attention which it receives from its sagacious curators, it is scarcely surprising that it thrives; and when the warm weather comes, it will be a fine sight to see these animals enjoying the range of a paddock, which will doubtless be provided for their use, and exercising their brawny forelimbs and powerful claws in pulling down conical mounds, which may remind them of departed joys and balmier climes. Nor will it be the least charm of the spectacle that it will enable us to compare this living species with other _Edentata_ of South America--such as the Megatherium, now only found in the fossil state, but so admirably restored by Mr Hawkins for the Crystal Palace.