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"I know the way; but please do watch for that horrible crocodile." Then she knelt down and crept into the hole, while after her came Robert, and after him the two Zulus, who protested that they were not ant-bears to burrow under ground. Lifting the lantern she searched the cave, and as she could see no signs of the crocodile, walked on boldly to where the stair began.
In size it is about six feet long and three and a half feet high. There were also ant-bears, peculiar animals, without teeth, but provided with a rough tongue to lick up the ants. The length of this animal is about four feet, but the thick tail is longer than the body. Whereas the tapir has a hog-like skin, the ant-bear has long, bristly hairs.
Even had it been a savage creature, he knew it could not climb a tree though there are two smaller species of ant-bears in South America that can and he therefore knew he was quite safe on his perch. But his feelings were very different when the red body of the puma came in sight.
Then the day strode up, and the light, creeping in, showed our jackal, curled up and fast asleep, in his lair, as far away as he could possibly get in the space two ant-bears', or aardvarks', holes run into one from his also curled-up wife. Later for it was quite chilly he came out to sleep in the sun, under a bush, till the sun, in turn, half-baked him, and he retired again to the den.
Besides the tamanoir there are two, or perhaps three, other species of ant-bears in the forests of South America. These, however, are so different in habits and appearance, that they might properly be classed as a separate genus of animals. They are tree-climbers, which the tamanoir is not, spite of his great claws.
A deer, with still smaller rudiments at the sides of its double foot, leads in the comparative series to the camel with a cloven hoof devoid of any such relics. We must pass with only brief mention the lower orders of mammalia, like the insect-eating forms to which armadillos and ant-bears belong.
The little ant-eater is usually of a bright yellow colour, brownish on the back; but there are many varieties in this respect, and some are of a snowy whiteness. Its fur is soft and silky, sometimes slightly curled or matted at the points, and the tail fur is annulated, or ringed, with the prevailing colours of the body. So much for the ant-bears of America.
The two species of smaller ant-bears, or Tamanduas, obtain their sustenance in a similar manner, and in other respects are like their great congener; but they possess a power with which the latter is not gifted that of climbing trees, and making their nests high up in the cavities of the trunks.
He turned his eyes in that direction. It was not there! The ant-bears were still upon the ground the young one dead, and the mother struggling in her last agonies; but no puma! The boy began to hope that his cries had frightened him off. His hope was short-lived; for on glancing around the glade, he now beheld the fierce brute crouching among the grass, and evidently coming towards him!
Its fur is soft and silky, sometimes slightly curled or matted at the points, and the tail fur is annulated, or ringed, with the prevailing colours of the body. So much for the ant-bears of America. Ants are disagreeable insects in any country, but especially so in warm tropical climates.
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