The tongue is long, narrow, and flat, and can be protruded considerably beyond the mouth, but not so far as those of the other insect-eating Edentata; and in order to keep up a supply of thick mucus, the glands under and at its side, or the sub-maxillary, are very large and active in their functions. The stomach is moderately bulky and not simple, for the portion towards the right has very thick muscular walls, and the rest is thin. The intestine has a blind gut, or cæcum.[63] In fact, the stomach and blind gut might belong to an animal which eats something more bulky and less nutritious than Ants, and would be of use to the creature, did it eat vegetable matters. All these structures, the simple teeth, the tear bones, the size of the ear bones, the Sloth-like teeth, with tubes, however, and the peculiarities about the intestinal canal are, it must be remembered, associated with the life of a purely insectivorous animal. Why has it not the kind of teeth of the Insectivora and their stomach? and why should it combine high and low characters in its skull? These are questions which, when attempted to be answered, show that in the great philosophy of nature causes and effects are not everything, and that the same definite methods of life may be followed by animals very differently constituted. The claws of the Orycteropus and the limbs are admirably suited for its kind of life. There are five claws on the hind limbs and four on the front, and they are long, slightly curved, flat, and scooped out below. The burrowing is facilitated by the arrangement of the claws as regards length, and they diminish in size from within outwards. There is a collar bone. The foot rests evenly on the ground and not on its outside, and the body is supported either by the whole foot or by the palm surface of the claws. The fore arm can be rotated more or less, and the pronator quadratus[64] muscle enables this necessary action to be carried out. The _Orycteropus capensis_ lives over a wide extent of country in South Africa, in Caffraria, and in the western districts. A closely-allied species lives in Senegal (_Orycteropus senegalensis_, Less.); and a third is found in Southern Nubia, near the White Nile (_Orycteropus æthiopicus_, Sund.). THE PANGOLINS, OR SCALY ANT-EATERS.[65] THE AFRICAN SCALY ANT-EATERS. An animal living in the same country, on the same kind of food, and having many of the habits of the Cape Ant-eater, especially as it belongs to the same order of the animal kingdom, might be expected to resemble it in shape and in most of the important parts of its construction. But the comparison between the Ant-eater, just described, and the Scaly Ant-eater, shows that these animals have some very remarkable differences. The Scaly Ant-eater is toothless, and covered with scales. [Illustration: TEMMINCK’S PANGOLIN.]