Much saliva is required to moisten the tongue, and the sub-maxillary
glands are therefore very large, and reach down under the skin of the
neck on to the chest. The stomach is usually, if not always, found
to contain stones which the creature has swallowed. Of course it can
hardly tell what may be on its tongue in the dark Ants’ nest, and earth
and stones are likely to rest on it and be swallowed, but the constant
presence of these hard things may have something to do with the
absence of the teeth, and the necessity of having a crushing material
somewhere or other. The walls of the stomach are thin near the entry of
the gullet tube, but towards the pylorus, or the right side end, the
muscles are well developed, and the mucous membrane is very dense.
These animals use their claws for the purpose of digging holes in the
ground, or in the Ants’ nests, for the sake of food, and the position
in walking is with the front claws bent under, so that the whole weight
of the front of the body is felt on the back (or upper part) of the
claws. The hind feet are placed flat, and the sole and under part of
the claws sustain the hinder quarters. The joints of the five fingers
of the fore feet are so arranged that they can bend downwards only,
and indeed they are more or less permanently bent, being kept in that
position by strong ligaments. This assists the digging powers of the
claws, which are, moreover, forked at their points in some species, and
the wrist is rendered very strong by having the joints between two of
its bones abolished, and they are united by bone, as in the carnivorous
animals. The bones thus united are the scaphoid and semi-lunar bones.
Every structure in the creature’s fore limbs tends to the promotion of
easy and powerful digging, and as the motion of scratching the ground
is directly downwards and backwards, the power of moving the wrist
half round, and presenting the palm more or less upwards, as in the
Sloths and in man, does not exist. In order to prevent this pronation
and supination, the part of the fore-arm bone, the radius, next to the
elbow, is not rounded, but forms part of a hinge joint. Finally, it is
necessary to observe, that the middle claw is the longest of the five
on all the extremities, and that as the animal does not require to
reach over its head, there is no collar bone.
[Illustration: FIVE-FINGERED PANGOLIN.]
The long tail of the Pangolins, stumpy at the end in some kinds, has a
considerable number of bones, usually twenty-six; and the first of them
joins on to the last of the back bones of the pelvis. This last, or
sacral vertebra, unites on each side with the haunch bones (ischium),
and there is no notch in the bone for the passages of the great nerves
of the back of the leg, but a hole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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