The winners in life's race

by Arabella B. Buckley

What, then, is the history of these old-fashioned animals? Much the same as that of the marsupials, so far as we can read it; for at the same time that opossums were living in Europe, strange animals, with imperfect rootless teeth, and toes with immense claws, bent inwards like the claws of the ant-eaters, were wandering over France and Greece, where we now find their bones. Then, a little later we find, on the shores of the Pacific in North America, other huge imperfect-toothed creatures, which lived, died, and were buried in the mud; and lastly, in South America, still later, we find whole skeletons of gigantic sloth-like animals the size of elephants,[125] which had not yet such long arms as the Sloth of to-day, but walked on four feet upon the ground and browsed upon the trees, while huge armadillo-like creatures,[126] with solid bony shields covering their backs, wandered in the vast forests and lived on animal food. Making use of these facts, then, cannot we picture to ourselves how these large unwieldy creatures, with their stiff bent claws and their weakly teeth, which if once broken or lost could not be replaced by a second set, were no match for the large tigers, bears, and other beasts of prey which were roaming over Europe and Asia; while those, on the contrary, which found their way from North to South America, and were cut off from the crowded world, just as the marsupials were, might live on and fill the land with large creepers and burrowers. In the old world the same would probably happen in Africa, where the sea certainly flowed at one time over the low-lying desert of Sahara; and so the Cape Ant-eater and the Pangolin, both so different from their American relations, would keep their place in the world.

This would explain how they gained a firm footing; but the next question is how they kept it, when jaguars and pumas began to roam over America, and lions and panthers over Africa? Now, if we inquire into the history of the Aard-Vark or great Cape ant-eater, which is in many ways much more like the American armadilloes,—for he has like them teeth in the back of his mouth, and walks flat-footed, though he has a thick skin and bristles instead of armour,—we find that he is a very timid animal, and lives almost entirely underground, only venturing out at night to scratch open the ant-hills with his strong claws, so that he may thrust his long sticky tongue into the ant-galleries to draw it back covered with food. Even then he never ventures far from his hole, so we can easily conjecture that it is by concealment that he has escaped destruction.

Still more would the Pangolins flourish, for though they are toothless and walk very clumsily, because their front feet are bent under so that they tread on the upper part, yet they have two means of protection. First, like the ant-eater, they live chiefly underground and come out at night; and secondly, their back is covered with sharp-edged scales, which grow from the skin as hairs do, and can be raised into a complete cheval-de-frise as they roll themselves up, or tuck their tail and head between their legs when they are attacked. Thus protected, the scaly ant-eaters not only flourish in Africa, but have even kept their ground in India, China, and Ceylon.

In America, on the other hand, we find that the armadilloes have gone strangely back to the bony armour of the reptiles or the ancient Labyrinthodonts, and have shields on their backs and heads formed of skin-plates exactly like those of the crocodile, so that the only delicate part of their body is the under side, which is kept close to the ground. When we see how well they are protected, and also remember that they are extremely quick burrowers and can get out of the way of dangerous enemies, while they feed on vegetables, insects, and dead creatures, we see why the plains and forests of South America should abound in armadilloes of all sizes, from the Great Armadillo, as large as a moderate-sized pig, to the little Pichiciago, not larger than a rat.

It would be more difficult to understand how the great hairy Ant-bear[127] ([p. 200]), with his twisted feet, united toes, and toothless tube-like snout, has managed to live on in the dense forests of South America, if we did not know that he is immensely strong, and his sharp claws and the deadly hug of his muscular arms are avoided even by large animals, while the small American Ant-eaters[128] live chiefly in the trees, feeding on bees, termites, and honey. A strange fellow is the great ant-bear as he wanders at night slowly and heavily along the river-banks, his long bushy tail sweeping behind him and his head bent low; or, if it be a mother, she may be carrying her little one clinging to her back, or pause to hold it in her long arms as it sucks. Be this as it may, by-and-by the ant-bear reaches a group of nests of termites (wrongly called white ants), looming six feet high in the dark night; at once the sharp claws are at work tearing the hill to pieces, though they are so strongly built that men have to open them with a crowbar, and as the alarmed termites rush out, the long sticky tongue wanders among them and they are drawn into the ant-bear’s mouth by thousands. Yet the ant-bear has his enemies, for it may be that in his night-walk he may come across the fierce jaguar in search of prey.

Now, D’Azara, the great traveller, doubted the stories of the natives when they said that the ant-bear could kill the jaguar, but Mr. Cumberland, who has lived much in South America and has himself killed the ant-bear, assures me that the animal is quite a match for such a wild beast. The muscles of his shoulder and arms are tremendous, the claws so hard and strong and sharp that when once stuck in they never lose their hold, and the ant-bear when attacked stands up and gives a death-hug so dreadful that the natives never dare to come to close quarters with him. Moreover, he is very difficult to kill. Mr. Cumberland, by the help of his dog and man, caught and disabled one of these creatures so as to tie his legs together and keep him stunned, but his skull was so hard that repeated blows with heavy quartz rock on his nose, the most vulnerable point, only succeeded in stunning him, and his skin was so tough that an ordinary small dagger-knife made no impression whatever. With all their efforts they could not put the poor animal to death till the following morning, when they could get a strong and sharp knife to butcher him. Such a creature as this need scarcely fear a jaguar or any beast of moderate size.

Such, however, is not the case with the dull-looking hairy forms which move among the tall cecropia trees above the ant-bear’s head; for the sloths, though busy enough in the trees, would fare but badly if they were condemned to live upon the ground. The sloth is surely one of the most curious examples of how an animal may live and flourish by taking to a strange way of life. We have seen ([p. 202]) how his ancestors, the Megatheriums, walked upon the ground, while he himself was formerly pitied by all travellers because his arms are so long in comparison with his legs that if he wants to walk he has to drag himself along upon his elbows, and while the ankles of his hind feet are so twisted that he can only rest on the side of the foot. But then they forgot that he seldom or never descends to the ground, for the buds and leaves of the trees are his food, and they are so juicy that he does not need to come down to drink, and when he is in his natural place in the trees he is no longer helpless.

There, safe from prowling animals on the ground below, he hangs like a hammock from the bough. The long fingers of his hand (in some sloths two, in others three, in number) and the three toes of his twisted hind feet, all armed with long claws, seize the branch like grappling irons; while his long flexible neck, which in one kind of sloth has more joints than in other mammalia, enables him to look over his shoulder and take a wide survey around. In the daytime he sleeps with his back in the fork of a branch and his head bent forward on his chest, but as the sun goes down he rouses to life and feeds by stretching out those long arms to tear the leaves and twigs, which he stuffs into his mouth and chews with his few back teeth. He has no need to hurry or disturb himself, for his long thick hair protects him from insects; and from the very fact of his being fitted for a tree-life he is safe from other animals except snakes, and even they do not find him out easily, so like is his dull matted hair to the colour of the bark and moss. Even the young ones run very few risks, for they are not born till they are perfect, and then the baby sloth clings to its mother’s hair, and goes with her wherever she travels, sucking till it is old enough to hang on to a bough and feed itself. So they live a completely tree-life, and sleepy as they seem, yet they can move quickly enough when they wish; and they often take advantage of a time when the wind is blowing so that the branches from tree to tree sway against each other, and by seizing the boughs as they touch, pass along and find new feeding-grounds.

We see, then, that while the duck-billed water-mole and the echidna have found a comparatively peaceful home in Australia, where the pouched animals have reigned as monarchs, and still hold their own in spite of the animals brought in by man; and while the opossums, by taking to a tree-life, revel in the forests of America: so the imperfect-toothed animals, an old and antiquated race of Life’s children, still remain in a few scattered forms by reason of their power to adapt themselves to peculiar conditions of life. What they may have been in olden times we can scarcely guess; but one thing is certain, namely, that before such strangely different forms as the sloth, the ant-eater, the manis, and the armadillo could each have settled down and taken on their special protective armour and habits, many others must have tried, flourished awhile, and died out. When we look at the bones of the gigantic Ground-sloths or Megatheriums of olden times, which walked on four feet and are supposed to have lived by tearing the trees up by the roots and feeding on the branches, or when we examine the huge shield of the monster Glyptodon, and find that it had no movable bands between the plates such as enable the armadillo to burrow with ease, or in some kinds to roll up in a ball, we see that it is not always size and strength that win in the battle of life; but that the sloth of to-day has probably lived on because, in taking refuge in the trees, it has secured great advantages by those peculiarly long arms and twisted feet for which men used to pity it; while the ant-eaters and armadilloes in their underground homes, and the pangolins rolled up into prickly balls, show that passive resistance and retiring habits, especially if fortified by a thick skin, are sometimes quite as useful in the struggle for existence as fierce passions and aggressive weapons.