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The flesh of these animals is good to eat; the first two defend themselves by rising on their hind feet. The tamanoir of Buffon is called uaraca by the Indians; it is irascible and courageous, which is extraordinary in an animal without teeth. We found, as we advanced, some vistas in the forest, which appeared to us the richer, as it became more accessible.
In claws he can compare with his American cousin any day, and can walk just as awkwardly upon the sides of his fore-paws with "toes turned in." Why, then, may I ask, do we hear so much talk of the "tamanoir," while not a word is said of the "aard-vark?" Every museum and menagerie is bragging about having a specimen of the former, while not one cares to acknowledge their possession of the latter!
He can break through ant-hills quite as big and bigger some of them twenty-feet high he can project as long and as gluey a tongue twenty inches long he can play it as nimbly and "lick up" as many white ants, as any tamanoir. He can grow as fat too, and weigh as heavy, and, what is greatly to his credit, he can provide you with a most delicate roast when you choose to kill and eat him.
The large one was thus seen to be a female that had been carrying her infant upon her shoulders. It was close to one of the ant-hills where the old tamanoir placed her young upon the ground, and turning away from it, she approached the great cone.
It spends most of its time upon the trees; and in addition to its ant-diet, it feeds upon wild honey, and bees too, whenever it can catch them. The female, like the tamanoir, produces only one young at a birth, and like the other species, carries it upon her back until it is able to provide for itself.
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.
The tamandua has sometimes been called tridactyla, or the "three-toed ant-eater," because it has only three claws upon each of its fore-feet, whereas the tamanoir is provided with four. Another species of "ant-bear," differing from both in size and in many of its habits, is the "little ant-eater." This one has only two claws on each fore-foot, hence its specific name.
In claws he can compare with his American cousin any day, and can walk just as awkwardly upon the sides of his fore-paws with "toes turned in." Why, then, may I ask, do we hear so much talk of the "tamanoir," while not a word is said of the "aard-vark?" Every museum and menagerie is bragging about having a specimen of the former, while not one cares to acknowledge their possession of the latter!
But the "aard-vark" is just as good an ant-eater as he, can "crack" as thick-walled a house, can rake up and devour as many termites as any "ant-bear" in the length and breadth of the Amazon Valley. He has got, moreover, as "tall" a tail as the tamanoir, very nearly as long a snout, a mouth equally small, and a tongue as extensive and extensile.
This is true of the puma in some districts, while in others the creature is cowardly, and will flee at the sight of man. In all cases, however, when the puma is brought to bay, it makes a desperate fight, and both dogs and men have been killed in the attack. Leon had not been frightened at the tamanoir.
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