Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/370

358 is one of the most timid and inoffensive of all creatures, not even surpassed in this respect by the guinea pig. It is never known to defend itself, much less to make an assault. The absence of incisors and canine teeth renders it incapable of biting, and it has no offensive odor to warn off molesters. Its strong claws, strange to say, are never used as weapons of combat.

Some species are said to be able to outrun a man, but the six-banded armadillo can not run faster than a man can walk. It has a habit when pursued of quickly dodging and doubling like a rabbit. Failing in all other means of escape, it simply puts its head between its fore feet, tucks its tail and feet away, and rolls itself into a ball, after the common habit of our porcupine and opossum. In this position it may be punched and kicked about with apparently the same freedom from feeling that is displayed by these animals in similar circumstances. Not all of the species, however, resort to this expedient. Some are enabled to expand and flatten their bodies until they lie on the ground extended like a board, somewhat after the habit of the snake known as the spreading adder.

If the armadillo can not reach its burrow before an enemy is upon it, it often escapes by digging its way into the—ground a feat which it is enabled to accomplish in an incredibly short space of time, vanishing before the very eyes of its pursuer. Persons unused to hunting the armadillo sometimes grab its retreating tail, thinking thus to draw out its owner. Failure invariably attends such efforts. The animal simply continues its course into the earth, leaving its tail in the hands of the astonished hunter!

The great strength which thus enables the armadillo to resist withdrawal resides chiefly in its wonderful feet and claws. It simply stiffens its legs and firmly implants its long toe-nails in the ground. The back and sides of the animal are at the same time forced against the top and sides of the burrow, wedging its body in the hole so tightly that six men could scarcely draw it out. It would be like pulling up a sapling tree by its roots. I have noticed a similar bracing movement, by a stiffening of the legs, in the Florida gopher or land tortoise, a creature which has some habits in common with the armadillo.

Hunters have three methods of getting the armadillo out of its hole: by drowning it out, by smoking it out, and by digging. Sometimes all three expedients prove unsuccessful, the rapid burrowing of the animal enabling it to escape. The surest way is to continue digging until the fugitive is exhausted.

Hunters frequently resort to stratagem by taking advantage of the nocturnal habits of the armadillo and capturing it when it emerges from its hole at nightfall. Or they watch near its