When we speak of a quadruped, the very name seems to carry the idea
of an animal covered with hair; as when we mention a bird, or fish,
feathers and scales present themselves to our imagination, and seem
to be inseparable attributes of those beings: yet Nature, as if
willing to deviate from this characteristic uniformity, and to elude
our views, offers herself, contrary to our general ideas, and in
contradiction to our denominations and characters, and amazes more by
her exceptions than by her laws. Quadrupeds, which we look upon as
the first class of living nature, and who are, next to man, the most
remarkable beings of this world, are neither superior in every thing,
nor separated by constant attributes from all other animals. The first
of those characters which constitutes their name, and which consists
in having four feet, is common to lizards, frogs, &c. which differ,
however, from quadrupeds in so many other respects, as to make them
be considered as a separate class. The second general property, to
produce young alive, is not peculiar to quadrupeds, since it is also
common with cetaceous animals. And the third attribute, which seems the
less equivocal, as it is the most apparent, that of being covered with
hair, exists not in several species which cannot be excluded from the
class of quadrupeds, since this single characteristic excepted, they
are like them in all other respects: and, as these exceptions of nature
are but gradations calculated to join in a general chain, the links
of the most distant beings, we should seize these singular relations
as they offer themselves to our view. The armadillos, instead of hair,
are covered, like turtles, craw-fish, &c. with a solid crust. The
manis is armed with scales like fish; the porcupine carries a sort of
prickly feathers, the quill of which is like that of the birds. Thus
in the class of quadrupeds, and in the most constant characteristic
of these animals, that of being covered with hairs, Nature varies in
bringing them near the three different classes of birds, fishes, and
the crustaceous kinds. We must be cautious then in judging of the
nature of beings by one single character, as that would always lead us
into error; even two or three characters, though general, are often
insufficient, and it is only, as we have often repeated, by the union
of all the attributes, and by enumerating all the characters, that we
can judge of the essential qualities of the productions of nature. A
good description without definitions, an exposition more exact on the
differences than the analogies, a particular attention to exceptions
and almost imperceptible gradations, are the true rules, and I dare
assert, the only means of estimating nature. If the time lost in
forming definitions had been employed in making good descriptions, we
should not at this day have found Natural History in its infancy; we
should have had less trouble in taking off her bawbles, disentangling
her from her swaddling clothes, and, perhaps, have anticipated her slow
discoveries, for we should have written more for science; and less
against error.
But to return to our subject; it appears then that there exists
several species of animals which are not covered with hair among the
viviparous quadrupeds. Armadillos form alone a whole genus, in which
may be reckoned many distinct species, all of whom are, however,
covered with a crust, resembling bone; it covers the head, neck,
back, flanks, rump, and the tail, to the very extremity. The crust
is covered with a thin skin, sleek and transparent: the only parts
that are not sheltered by this buckler are the throat, breast, and
belly, which have a white grainy skin, like that of a plucked fowl, by
inspecting these parts with attention, we perceive the rudiments of
scales of the same substance as the crust; the skin of these animals,
even in the places where it is most soft, is therefore inclined to
become bony, but the ossification is only realized on the superior and
external parts of the body. This crust is not in one piece, like that
of the turtle, but consists of several bands, joined to each other
by membranes, which allow this armour a degree of motion. The number
of these bands does not depend, as might be imagined, on the age of
the animal. The young armadillos, and the adults, have the same number
of stripes, of which we have been convinced by comparing them; and
though we cannot be certain that all these animals do not intermix
and produce promiscuously, yet it is very probable, that since the
difference in the number of these moveable bands is constant, they are
really distinct species, or at least lasting varieties, produced by the
influence of various climates. In this uncertainty, which time alone
can remove, we have thought proper to mention all the armadillos under
one head, enumerating each of them as if they were, in fact, so many
different species.
Father d'Abbeville seems to be the first who has distinguished them by
different names or epithets, and which have been, for the most part,
adopted by the authors who have written after him. He has clearly
indicated six species of them: first, _tatououasso_, or, as we call
it, twelve-banded armadillo; 2. the _tatouette_, or eight-banded; 3.
the _encuberto_ of Marcgrave, or six-banded; 4. the _tatua-apara_,
or three-banded; 5. the _cinquinçon_, or eighteen-banded; 6.
_cachichame_, or nineteen-banded. Other travellers have confounded the
species; but we have borrowed only the description of the _apar_ and
the _cinquinçon_, having seen the other four.
All, except the _cinquinçon_ have two long bucklers, one at the
shoulders, and another on the rump; they each consist of one solid
piece; but the cuirass, which is also bony, and covers the body, is
transversely divided, and parted into more or less moveable bands,
separated from each other by a flexible skin. But the _cinquinçon_ has
but one buckler, and that on his shoulder, the rump being covered with
moveable bands, like those of the cuirass of the body. But we shall now
proceed to a description of them particularly.