The first author who described this animal was Clusius, and though his
description was from a drawing only, it is evidently the same species
which Marcgrave calls the _tatua-apara_; from its three moveable
stripes, and its short tail; he has an oblong head, almost pyramidal;
the snout sharp, small eyes, short round ears, and the upper part of
the head covered with a helmet of one piece; he has five claws to each
foot; the two middle claws of the fore feet are very long, and the
two lateral shorter; the fifth, which projects, is the least. In the
hind feet they are shorter and more even. The tail is but two inches
in length, and is entirely covered with a crust; the body is a foot
long, and above eight inches in its largest breadth. The cuirass, which
covers it, is divided into four parts, and composed of three moveable
transverse bands, which give the animal liberty to bend and contract
his body in a round form; the skin between the stripes is very supple.
The bucklers which cover the shoulders and rump are composed of five
pieces, equally disposed in five angles; the three moveable bands
betwixt these two bucklers consist of square pieces, ornamented with
little scales of a straw colour. Marcgrave adds, that when he lies down
to sleep, or any person touches him, he brings his fore feet together,
lays his head under his belly, and bends himself so perfectly round
that he looks more like a sea-shell than a terrestrial animal. This
contraction is made with the assistance of two great muscles on the
sides of his body, and the strongest man finds it difficult to force
him with his hands to stretch out. Piso, and Ray, have added nothing
to the description of Marcgrave, but it is singular that Seba, who
has given us a description and figure of this animal evidently copied
after Marcgrave, not only not mentions that author, but tells us, "that
no naturalist has known this animal, that it is extremely scarce, and
found in the most remote countries of the East Indies," when in fact
this animal is well described by Marcgrave, and the species is well
known, not indeed in the East Indies, but in America, where it is very
common. The only real difference between the description of Seba, and
that of Marcgrave is, that the latter gives the animal five claws to
each foot, and Seba allows him but four, and yet they evidently speak
of the same animal.
_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._
[Illustration: FIG. 127. _Six Banded Armadillo._]
[Illustration: FIG. 128. _Long-tailed Armadillo._]
Fabius Calumna has given the description and figure of an armadillo
contracted into a ball, which seems to have had four moveable bands,
but as this author was absolutely unacquainted with the animal, whose
skin or shell he has described, as he did not even know the name of
the armadillo, though mentioned by Bellon fifty years before, but gave
him a Greek name, (_cheloniscus_); besides, as he confesses, that the
skin had been pasted together, and wanted several pieces, we do not
see ourselves authorised to pronounce, as our modern nomenclators have
done, that a species of armadillo, with four moveable bands, exists in
Nature; and more especially since these imperfect indications given in
1606, by Fabius Calumna, no mention is made of it in the works of any
naturalists; and, if he really did exist, he certainly would have been
introduced into some cabinets, or have been observed by some travellers.