210 VIEW OF THE FAUNA OF BRAZIL 



will object to the view I have ventured to give of their habits. 

 I confess the weight of this objection, which no one can feel 

 more than I do. Indeed, it had the effect of long preventing 

 me from coming to what appeared so improbable a conclusion, 

 and impelled me to a detailed and wearisome examination of 

 all the relations and circumstances that could bear upon the 

 subject, to discover, if possible, some other solution of the 

 phenomena which the osteology of the Megalonyx presents. 

 This is not the place to detail all my investigations ; but at 

 least T may say this, that the more points of view in which I 

 considered the subject, the more irresistibly was I led to the 

 conclusion I have ventured to express ; although no one con- 

 fesses more readily than I do, how much, at the first glance, 

 it appears to be at variance with nature. 



In truth, what ideas must we form of a scale of creation, 

 where, instead of our squirrels, creatures of the size and bulk 

 of the Rhinoceros and Hippopotamus climbed up trees 1 It 

 is very certain that the forests in which these huge monsters 

 gambolled, could not be such as now clothe the Brazilian 

 mountains j but it will be remembered, that in the former 

 communication which I had the honour of submitting to the 

 Society, I endeavoured to show, that the trees we now see in 

 this region are but the dwarfish descendants of those loftier 

 and nobler forests which originally covered these Highlands ; 

 and we may surely be permitted to suppose that the vege- 

 tation of that primaeval age was on a no less gigantic scale 

 than the animal creation. 



In the present order of existing nature, all the mammals 

 that are appointed to live in trees belong to the smaller 

 kinds ; which seems so essential a condition, that in the fami- 

 lies and genera containing climbers, the development of 

 this faculty diminishes in a ratio corresponding to the increase 

 in size of the species. Thus, in the genus Fells, the smaller 

 species live for the most part in trees ; those of an interme- 

 diate size, hunt their prey on the ground, but climb with 

 more or less activity ; while the largest species of all are en- 

 tirely deprived of that power. Again, in the family of apes, 

 the existence of the smaller kinds is indissolubly linked with 

 arboreal habits ; while the larger frequently descend, and 

 pass a considerable portion of their lives on the ground. So, 

 also, in the ant-bears, the smallest species of all lives entirely 

 in trees ; those of middle size feed principally on the ground, 

 but also ascend trees ; while the very largest have the ground 

 assigned them for their perpetual abode. It therefore very 

 reasonably excites our astonishment, to find that in a former 

 period of creation, such enormous monsters should have had 

 trees allotted them for their habitat. 



