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Examine only a figure of this animal in books of natural history, or inspect a stuffed specimen in the best museums, and you will see that the fore-claws are just in the same forward attitude as those of a dog, or a common bear when he walks or stands. But this is a distorted and unnatural position, and in life would be a painful and intolerable attitude for the ant-bear.
They gave us for dinner boiled ant-bear and red monkey: two dishes unknown even at Beauvilliers in Paris or at a London city feast. The monkey was very good indeed, but the ant-bear had been kept beyond its time: it stunk as our venison does in England; and so, after tasting it, I preferred dining entirely on monkey. After resting here we went back to the river.
The next moment my horse snorted and shied violently, and no wonder, for out of a great ant-bear hole not five paces away appeared a yellow face crowned with black wool, in which was set a broken feather. I looked at the face and the face looked at me. "Hans," I said, "is it you? I thought that you were killed with the others." "And I thought that you were killed with the others, baas.
Now, on the contrary, the inner side of the bottom of his foot is soft and rather hairy. There is another singularity in the anatomy of the ant-bear, I believe as yet unnoticed in the page of natural history. He has two very large glands situated below the root of the tongue. From these is emitted a glutinous liquid, with which his long tongue is lubricated when he puts it into the ants' nests.
"And then, Otter, good night." "Yes, Baas, for you good night, and for me, what? Baas, you think too much and you have nothing to do, that is why you grow sick. Better that we should go and dig again." "What for, Otter? Ant-bear holes make good graves." "Evil talk, Baas. Rather let us go away and wait no more than that you should talk such talk, which is the beginning of death."
It is even asserted that the great ant-bear sometimes hugs the jaguar to death; but this I believe to be a mistake, as the latter is far too powerful and active to be thus conquered. Doubtless the resemblance of the jaguar to some of the smaller spotted cats of these countries, leads to a great many misconceptions concerning the prowess of the American tiger.
I'm fair sick of treatin' that lot as if they was square fighters. Why, 'e'd fire on a nurse or an ambulanche, that tyke would." "There's lots like him in yonder," urged the First, as a hand was jerked forward towards the hills, "and we're goin' to get 'em this time goin' to get 'em on the shovel. Their schanses and their kranzes and their ant-bear dugouts ain't goin' to help them this mop-up.
Nor does the ant-bear, in the meantime, suffer much from loss of aliment, as it is a well-known fact that he can go longer without food than, perhaps, any other animal, except the land-tortoise. His skin is of a texture that perfectly resists the bite of a dog; his hinder-parts are protected by thick and shaggy hair, while his immense tail is large enough to cover his whole body.
The secretion from them, when wet, is very clammy and adhesive, but on being dried it loses these qualities, and you can pulverise it betwixt your finger and thumb; so that in dissection, if any of it has got upon the fur of the animal or the feathers of the bird, allow it to dry there, and then it may be removed without leaving the least stain behind. The ant-bear is a pacific animal.
"Mind the ant-bear holes!" shouted Dikkop, but as he shouted in Dutch Jerry did not understand him, and devoted himself to vain endeavours to restrain the horse. At first the animal looked after itself and avoided the holes referred to, but as Jerry kept tugging furiously at the reins it became reckless, and finally put a fore-leg into a hole.
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