Nieremberg has described this animal very imperfectly: Wormius and Grew
have described him much better. The individual which Wormius mentioned
was adult, and one of the largest of the species; that of Grew was
younger and smaller. We shall only give their descriptions as far as
they agree with our own specimens. Besides, it may be presumed, that
this nine-striped armadillo is not really a distinct species from
the eight, which he resembles in every other respect. We have two
eight-banded armadillos which are dried, and seem to be both males; we
have seven or eight with nine bands, one well preserved, which is a
female, and the others are so dried up that we could not discern the
sex. It is probable, therefore, that the eight-banded is the male and
the nine-banded the female. But this is merely a conjecture for we
shall give in the following article the description of two armadillos,
one of which has more rows than the other upon the buckler on the rump,
and yet they are so alike in every other respect, that one should be
inclined to think this difference arises only from that of the sex, for
it is not improbable, that greater numbers of these moveable bands may
be necessary to facilitate the gestation and delivery of the female.
The head of the armadillo, the skin of which Wormius has described,
was five inches from the end of the snout to the ears, and eighteen
inches from the ears to the tail, which last was a foot in length, and
composed of twelve rings. The head of that described by Grew was three
inches, the body seven and a half, and the tail eleven; the proportions
of the head and body agree, but the difference of the tail is too
great; and it is probable that the tail of that described by Wormius
had been broken, for it should have exceeded a foot in length. As in
this species the tail diminishes to the size of an awl, and is, at the
same time, very brittle; few of the skins therefore have the whole tail
preserved as that described by Grew.