The thigh bone is flattened from before backwards, and the bones of the leg are wide apart, and all this gives extra powers to the muscles which have to direct the scraping and digging by the hind feet. The feet are solid and strong, and have not any of the inside turning and club-foot appearance of the Sloths, and the heel bone projects backwards. There is an interesting peculiarity about the chest of the Pangolins, for the breast bone is very long, and the cartilage at its end is large, and has two long projections resembling those of the Lizards. The neck consists of seven vertebræ, and the back of thirteen, and there are three or four in the sacrum. THE AMERICAN ANT-EATERS. The adjective “long” may be applied to nearly all the structures of these animals. The tail, body, neck, head, snout, and tongue, and the hair are all very long, and the only things which are short are the ears. The observer is immediately struck with the curiously-shaped head, so narrow, low, and ending in a flexible and very slender snout, especially if the round tongue happens to be projecting out of the mouth, for it is longer even than the head, and is like a gigantic worm. The snout appears bent, and is made to look all the longer, by the eye being placed not far from the small ear. Then the huge bushy tail, flattened from side to side, as long as the body, has a fringe of very long and strong hair. The body itself moves on four powerful limbs, well clawed, and looks bulky from the quantity of hair on it, but usually it is thin. The animal, when it stands still, is higher at the shoulders than behind, and it rests on the sides of the fore-feet, where there is a callous pad, the claws being bent inwards and under, and not touching the ground with their tips. The under part of the hind feet bears the weight of the hind limbs. It is about four feet and a half in length from the snout to the tail, the tail being rather more than three feet in length, and the height is about three feet and a half. So long is the head, that it measures thirteen inches and a half from the ear to the snout, and the tongue can be projected for sixteen or eighteen inches, and is, when brought back into the mouth, bent so that its tip looks backwards towards the throat. The animal belongs to a group of the Edentata (for it is toothless) which has the following genera:--One genus, which is now being considered, is _Myrmecophaga_--μύρμης (an Ant), and φαγεῖν (to eat)--a second is _Tamandua_, and the third is _Cyclothurus_, from κυκλωτός (rounded). The animals of this group represent in South America the Pangolins and Cape Ant-eaters of the Old World. The species of the genus _Myrmecophaga_, which has been thus slightly alluded to, is called the Maned Ant-eater. THE GREAT ANT-BEAR.[69]