Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/380

352 licking up the insects with its sticky tongue, the Pangolin must necessarily swallow a considerable amount of earth and gravel as well. Now, as I myself have seen, it is often possible in the gold-bearing districts to obtain a good show of "colour" by panning a piece of earth broken at random off a termite-heap, and if in such a locality the Pangolin is liable to swallow a certain amount of quartz pebbles as well, its chances of picking up gold would be much increased. Although the amount of the precious metal swallowed at any one time would be small, yet it would probably tend to accumulate, as the gastric juice would not act upon it. Thus that which, at first sight, appears to be an absurd belief, will probably prove to be an actual fact. Unfortunately the animal which I examined had come from a locality right in the granite formation, and far from any known gold-belt; so that when I panned the quartz from its stomach no gold was to be seen, although there was a good "tail" of pyrites. Some Blantyre natives in my employ said that the Pangolin was common in their country, but that they never ate it, nor did they know anything of its auriferous qualities.— (Salisbury, Mashonaland).

[I have known this interesting genus on two continents, and the scaly skins of specimens from the Malay Peninsula (Manis javanica), and the South African species on which Mr. Marshall has written, are before me now. The word Pangolin is derived from the Malay Penggoling, signifying the animal which rolls itself up. The contents found in the stomachs of these animals in the east are identical with what Mr. Marshall discovered in his South African species. Cantor found the stomach of a M. javanica extended by the remains (head and legs) of large black ants, and also "five small rounded fragments of granite." In the Ceylon species (M. pentadactyla) Tennant found a quantity of small stones and gravel, "which had been taken to facilitate digestion." Mystical properties are also ascribed to the animals in the east. Diard and Duvaucel, writing from Bencoolen, state that, owing to the wonderful medicinal properties attributed to their scales and nails by the natives, they found it very difficult to procure specimens. In the Indian highlands, Ball relates that the prevalent native idea is that the creature is a land-fish, and that its flesh has