All lizards are covered with a sleek speckled skin, in representation of scales, but these animals have no scales on their throat, breast, or belly, the phatagen, or long-tailed manis, (_fig. 126._) like other quadrupeds, has hair on all these under parts of the body; the pangolin, or short-tailed manis (_fig. 125._) has nothing but a smooth skin without hair. The scales with which all the other parts of the bodies of these two animals are covered do not stick to the skin, they are only strongly fixed at the lower parts, being moveable, like the quills of a porcupine, at the will of the animal; they raise these scales when exasperated, and when particularly so, they roll themselves up like a ball, resembling the hedge-hog: these scales are so big, so hard, and so sharp, that they repel all animals of prey; it is an offensive armour which wounds while it resists. The most cruel and voracious animals, such as the tiger and the panther, make but useless efforts to devour these animals, they tread upon, and roll them about, but when they attempt to seize them, they receive severe wounds; they can neither destroy them by violence, nor bruize, or smother them with their weight. The fox is averse to attacking the hedge-hog when rolled up, but he forces him to stretch himself by treading on, and squeezing him with all his weight, and as soon as his head appears, he seizes the snout, and thus secures him as a prey. But of all quadrupeds, without even excepting the porcupine, the armour of the manis is the strongest and most offensive, and which animals, by contracting their bodies and presenting their weapons, brave the fury of all their enemies. When they contract themselves, they do not take, like the hedge-hog, a globose figure, but form an oblong, their thick and long tail remaining outwardly and encircling their bodies; this exterior part, by which it would seem these animals could be seized, carries its own defence; it is covered with scales equally hard and sharp as those with which the body is cloathed, and as it is convex upwards and flat below, nearly in the form of half a pyramid, the sides are covered with square scales folding in a right angle, as thick and as cutting as the others, so that the tail seems to be still more strongly armed than the body, the under parts of which are unprovided with scales.