pursued, they can only escape by hiding themselves in their holes; if these be too far off, the poor hunted creatures dig a hole before they are overtaken, and with their strong snout and fore claws in a few moments conceal themselves. Sometimes, however, before they are quite concealed, they are caught by the tail, when they struggle so powerfully that the tail often breaks short, and is left in the hands of the pursuers. To prevent this the hunter tickles the animal with a stick, till it looses its hold, and allows itself to be taken without further resistance. At other times, when pursued, and finding flight ineffectual, the Armadillos withdraw the head under the edge of the buckler of the shoulders; their legs, except the feet, are naturally hidden by the borders of the bucklers and the bands; they then contract the body as far towards the shape of a ball as the stretching of the membrane which unites the different movable pieces of the armour will permit.⁸ Thus defended, they frequently escape danger; but if near a precipice, the animal will sometimes roll itself over, and in this case, says Molina, in his Natural History of Chili, it generally falls to the bottom unhurt.

Armadillos were formerly thought to feed exclusively on vegetables; but they have since been found to devour insects and flesh. The directions of their burrows evince that they search after ant heaps, and the insects quickly disappear from near the hole of an Armadillo. The largest species, the great black Armadillo, common in the forests of Paraguay, feeds on the carcasses of animals; and the graves of the dead which are necessarily formed at a distance from the usual places of sepulture, in countries where the great Armadillo is found, are protected by strong double boards to prevent the animal from penetrating and devouring the body. It appears, also, that it eats young birds, eggs, snakes, lizards, &c. The Indians are very fond of the flesh of the Armadillo as food, especially when young; but, when old, it acquires a strong musky flavour. Mr. Waterton, who tasted the flesh, considered it strong and rank. The shells or crusts are applied to various useful purposes, and painted of different colours are made into boxes, baskets, &c.

Cuvier remarks that that old mode of distinguishing the species of Armadillos by the number of the bands is clearly objectionable, inasmuch as D'Azara has established that not only the number of these bands varies, in the different individuals of the same species, but further, that there are individuals of different species which have the same number of bands. Eight species mentioned by D'Azara are admitted as distinct, but the whole number is very doubtful.

(The species represented in the Cut,⁹ or, the Nine-banded, is the most common. In the Zoological Gardens, in the Regent's Park, and in Surrey, are several specimens. They are usually kept in cages, but on fine sunny days are let out upon the turf. Their general pace may here be seen to advantage: it is a sort of quick shuffling walk, and they get over the ground easily, notwithstanding the weight of their shelly covering.)

In conclusion, it is interesting to remark that the whole series of these very singular animals offers a notable example of one genus being confined to a particular country. We have observed that they all belong to South America; nor do we find that in any parts of the old world, or, indeed, in the great northern division of the new, any races of quadrupeds at all to resemble them, or in any manner to be compared with them. They may be said to stand perfectly insulated; they exhibit all the characters of a creation entirely distinct, and except as to the general characters of mammiferous quadrupeds, perfectly of their own kind. There is no break in the whole circle of them, no deviation or leaning towards any other organized form; so that the boldest conjecture will hardly venture to guess at any other than a separate creation for these animals, and a distinct allocation in South America. This peculiarity is rendered the more striking by the facility with which it seems to endure removal, even to our latitudes; thereby proving that its present confined identity with South America is not altogether the result of its physical necessities.¹⁰

CLIMATE OF CANADA.

From Sketches, by a Backwoodsman.

It never has been accountable to me, how the heat of the sun is regulated. There is no part of Upper Canada that is not to the south of Penzance, yet there is no part of England where the cold is so intense as in Canada; nay, there is no cold in England equal to the cold of Virginia, which, were it on the European side of the hemisphere, would be looked upon as an almost tropical climate. To explain to an European what the climate of Upper Canada is, we would say, that in summer it is the climate of Italy, in winter that of Holland; but in either case we should only be giving an illustration, for in both winter and summer it possesses peculiarities which neither of these two climates possess. The summer heat of Upper Canada generally ranges towards 80° Fahrenheit; but should the wind blow twenty-four hours steadily from the north, it will fall to 40° during the night. The reason of this seems to be the enormous quantity of forest over which that wind blows, and the leaves of the trees affording such an extensive surface of evaporation. One remarkable peculiarity in the climate of Canada, when compared with those to which we have likened it, is its dryness. Far from the ocean, the salt particles that somehow or other exist in the atmosphere of sea-bounded countries are not to be found here; roofs of tinned iron of fifty years' standing are as bright as the day they came out of the shop; and you may leave a charge of powder in your gun for a month, and find, at the end of it, that it goes off without hanging fire. The diseases of the body, too, that are produced by a damp atmosphere, are uncommon here. It may be a matter of surprise to some to hear, that pectoral and catarrhal complaints, which, from an association of ideas they may connect with cold, are here hardly known. In the cathedral at Montreal, where from three to five thousand people assemble every Sunday, you will seldom find the service interrupted by a cough, even in the dead of winter and in hard frost; whereas, in Britain, from the days of Shakspeare, even in a small country church, "coughing drowns the parson's saw." Pulmonary consumption, too, the scourge alike of England and the sea-coast of America, is so rare in the northern parts of New York and Pennsylvania, and the whole of Upper Canada, that in eight years' residence I have not seen as many cases of the disease as I have in a day's visit to a provincial infirmary at home. The only disease we are annoyed with here, that we are not accustomed to at home, is the intermittent fever,—and that, though most abominably annoying, is not by any means dangerous: indeed, one of the most annoying circumstances connected with it is, that, instead of being sympathized with, you are only laughed at. Otherwise the climate is infinitely more healthy than that of England. Indeed, it may be pronounced the most healthy country under the sun, considering that whisky can be procured for about one shilling sterling per gallon. Though the cold of a Canadian winter is great, it is neither