599.31 324 



569.31 



591.9(8) 



III 



An Existing Ground-Sloth in Patagonia 1 



MANY times I have heard allusions to a mysterious quadruped 

 which is said to exist in the interior of the territory of 

 Santa Cruz, living in burrows hollowed out in the soil, and usually 

 only coming out at night. According to the reports of the Indians, 

 it is a strange creature, with long claws and a terrifying appearance, 

 impossible to kill because it has a body impenetrable alike to fire- 

 arms and missiles. 



It is several years since the late Ramon Lista, a traveller and 

 geographer well known to the world of science, told both myself, 

 my brother Charles, and several other persons— and had, I believe, 

 even printed the statement in one of his works — that he had seen 

 the mysterious quadruped in question. He came across it one day 

 during one of his journeys in the interior of the territory of Santa 

 Cruz, but in spite of all his efforts he was unable to capture it. 

 Several shots failed to stop the animal, which soon disappeared in 

 the brushwood ; all search for its recovery being useless. 



Lista retained a perfect recollection of the impression this 

 encounter made upon him. According to him the animal was a 

 pangolin (Manis), almost the same as the Indian one, both in size 

 and in general aspect, except that in place of scales, it showed the 

 body to be covered with a reddish grey hair. He was sure that if 

 it were not a pangolin, it was certainly an edentate nearly allied 

 to it. 



In spite of the authority of Lista, who, besides being a learned 

 traveller, was also a skilled observer, I have always considered that 

 he was mistaken, the victim of an illusion. Still, although I have 

 several times tried to find out what animal might have given him 

 the illusion of the pangolin, I was never able to guess. 



It was not an illusion. Although extremely rare and almost 

 extinct, the mysterious animal exists, with the sole difference, that 

 instead of being a pangolin, it is the last representative of a group 



1 Translated from a pamphlet entitled " Premiere Notice sur le Ncomylodon lista i, 

 un Representant vivant des aneiens Edentes Gravigrades fossiles de 1' Argentina," by 

 Florentino Ameghino, separately published by the author in the city of La Plata, Argen- 

 tine Republic, August 1898. We have already noticed this important discovery (p. 288), 

 but it is one of so much interest to zoologists that no apology is needed for directing 

 further attention to the subject by reproducing the complete article. 



