slender metacarpal, and three phalanges diminishing in size, the ungual phalanx being very small. The fifth has the metacarpal nearly as long, but not so stout, as the fourth, and followed by two small phalanges, the last rudimentary and conical. Claws are developed upon all but the fifth. In walking the toes are kept strongly flexed, and have their points turned upwards and inwards, the weight being supported upon a callous pad over the end of the fifth digit, and by the dorsal surfaces of the third and fourth digits. The hind feet are short and rather broad, with five subequal claws, the fourth the longest, the first shortest; the whole sole is placed on the ground in walking. Body rather compressed, clothed with long, coarse hair. Tail about as long as the body, and covered with very long hair; not prehensile. Ears small, oval, erect. Eyes very small. Stomach consisting of a subglobular, thin-walled, cardiac portion, and a muscular pyloric gizzard with dense epithelial lining. No ileo-colic valve, and a short wide ill-defined cæcum. Mammæ two, pectoral. There is one species,[100] _M. jubata_, the Great Anteater, or Ant Bear (Fig. 64), measuring 4 feet in length without the tail, and upwards of 2 feet in height at the shoulder. Its prevailing colour is gray, with a broad black band, bordered with white, commencing on the chest, and passing obliquely over the shoulder, diminishing gradually in breadth as it approaches the loins, where it ends in a point. It is extensively distributed in the tropical parts of South and Central America, frequenting low swampy savannas along the banks of rivers, and the depths of the humid forests, but is nowhere abundant. Its food consists mainly of termites, to obtain which it opens their nests with its powerful sharp anterior claws, and as the insects swarm to the damaged part of their dwelling, it draws them into its mouth by means of its long, flexible, rapidly-moving tongue covered with glutinous saliva. The Great Anteater is quite terrestrial in its habits, being never known to climb trees, nor does it burrow underground like the Armadillos. Though generally an inoffensive animal, when attacked it can defend itself vigorously and effectively with its sabre-like anterior claws. The female bears but a single young at a birth. The union of the pterygoids in the middle line to prolong the narial passage is a character found elsewhere among existing mammals only in the next genus, in one Armadillo (_Tatusia_), and in certain Cetacea. The contrast in length between the skull of the Great Anteater and that of the Sloth is, as Professor Parker observes, very marked indeed; the one being relatively the longest and the other almost the shortest in the whole class. The small size and incomplete development of the jugal bone in the zygomatic arch affords another striking contrast to the Sloths (Fig. 59).