I 82 HAIR OF NEOMYLODON 



strange, huge, ugly monster, which had its abode in the Cordillera 

 to the south of latitude 37. The Tehuelches and the Gennakens 

 have mentioned similar animals to me, of whose existence their 

 ancestors had transmitted the remembrance; and in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Eio Negro, the aged Cacique Sinchel, in 1875, 

 pointed out to me a cave, the supposed lair of one of these 

 monsters, called ' Ellengassen ' ; but I must add that none of the 

 many Indians with whom I have conversed in Patagonia have 

 ever referred to the actual existence of animals to which we can 

 attribute the skin in question." 



A rude painting in a cavern, in red ochre, seems to Dr. 

 Moreno (whose words we have just quoted) to be somewhat 

 suggestive of a Glyptodon. There are some reasons for believing 

 that this quadruped was kept by man as a domestic creature. 

 In the cave are two walls of rough pieces of stone which seem 

 to have dropped down owing to the wearing away of the roof; 

 they also seem to have been loosely piled together to form two 

 walls, within which enclosure an imperfect skull of the animal was 

 found. This skull shows clearly that the so-called " Neomylodon " 

 must be referred to Glossotherium or Grypotherium, as it is 

 sometimes termed. This skull is perforated on the roof in such 

 a way as could only have been effected (in the opinion of 

 experts) by a weapon in the hand of a man. A hole in the skin 

 has been even compared to a bullet-wound. But this it is per- 

 haps unnecessary to discuss. The skin of Glossotherium is, like 

 that of other extinct " Ground-sloths " (e.g. Mylodon), filled with 

 small and irregular ossicles. But in Mylodon, the sculptured 

 appearance of the dermal ossicles appears to indicate that they 

 reached the surface of the body and were covered by epidermis 

 alone, which is not the case with the animal now under con- 

 sideration. The microscopic characters of the ossicles, too, show 

 differences in the two. Glossotherium being " precisely inter- 

 mediate between Mylodon and the existing Armadillo (Dasypus}." 

 Now Glossotherium and Mylodon are regarded as forms which lie 

 between the existing Anteaters and the Sloths of the same part 

 of the world. We have already pointed out the facts of structure 

 which lead to this conclusion. It might therefore be reasonably 

 surmised that the hair of Glossotherium would be also inter- 

 mediate, or at least like that of one of the two genera Myrme- 

 cophaga and Bradypus. But microscopical investigation has 





