Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1889-07-18

HuNTsNts the AaAhAoiLLo.
uoU the Animal Il Desrsyed In HE Hsdins
Place BY Mosquitoes.
Zone of the principal recreatious in
Central America, said an engineer
who spent a year on the Nicaragua
canal survey. lis hunting the armadil-
better than to say it resembles pine
cone about fifteen inches long and
six or seven inches through. fitted
with the head and four legs of snap
ping turtle. and tail like the horn Of
short-horn bull, all covered with
plates of armor. The armor is all
thick bone and every plate works on q
hinge. Any animal rugged up in that
way you might suppose would be an
ugly customer to meet. but a turtle
dove isn't any more meek and HARM
less than the armadil1o. He burrows
in the ground like the woodchucl<s do
up here. and he can dig his way un-
foreground when he IL flying from the
hunter good deal faster than the
hunter can dig after him. Covered
from the end of his snout TO the tip of
his tail, and clear down to his toe
nails. as the armadillo is, with bone
coat of mail an eighth OF an inch thick,
he defies all beasts of prey to make a
meal of him except one. That Is the
native mosquitoe. A mosquitoe that
can suck the blood out of an animal
inclosed in bone case ought to be n
success. oughtn't he? These mosqui-
toes won't refresh themselves on any
oil
10. No hound ever trailed fox to
his den so mercilessly as a flock of
mosquitoes will follow the armadillo
to his hole. In fact the hunters down
there hunt the armadillo by means of
the mosquitoe. 1t is a job to bag your
armadillo even after you have dead
| sure thing that he is in his hole. II
you had to dig on an uncertainty you
might throw out enough ground to fill
a cellar and then find that
your armadillo hadn't been
in his hole from the start. But the
mosquito will give you the straight
tip every time. When a hunter goes
out after armadillo he arms himself
with pole ten feet long. and a pick
and shovel. He never knows from
outside appearances at hole whether
the armadillo is in or out, so he pokes
the pole down in the hole and stirs it
around. If the armadillo is at home.
out will swarm hatful or two of mo =
quitOes, who were getting their din
ner off the animal, and were disturbed
by the pole. If the tenant is not at
home there will be no sign of a mos
quito about the place. As soon as the
hunter locates his game he finds by
poking in the hole which direction the
armadillo is running his tunnel, for he
begins to dig as soon as he finds he is
being hunted. The bearings of the
tunnel found, the hunter sinks shaft
about ten feet away from the entrance.
That shaft will sometimes be ten feet
deep before it strikes the armadillo's
tunnel, and sometimes several deep
shafts have to be sunk before the
armadillo is caught up with and head
ed OFF. A few raps on the end of the
armadillo's nose will kill him. There
is big black ant there that is also a
good locator of the armadillo. These
ants build mounds that are frequently
ten feet high and thirty feet around.
1t is startling as you are walking
through the woods to see one of these
immense mounds sink out of sight so
quick that it almost makes you dizzy.
That means armadillo. He lives on
those ants. and he can't get at them
any other way than by digging the
foundation from under their houses
and letting them right down to him
If the armadillo didn't eat these ants
by the million. they would overrun
the country and destroy all the crops.
and if the armadillo didn't let the
mosquitoes eat it by the ton, the mos.
quito would eat up all the people. The
Central American natives make dish
out of armadillo meat that they seem
to enjoy hugely. but it is not a meal
that any white man not member Of
the Ichthyophagus Club could well sit
down and fool with. IN. Y. Sun.