358 Zoological Summary of Extinct and Living Animals 



very, that in one of the huge extinct Sloths, another character, 

 heretofore deemed peculiar to the class of birds, should have 

 been repeated, viz. the bony confluence of the last dorsal and 

 the lumbar vertebra? with the sacrum. All these indications of 

 a transition to a lower class harmonize with the Cuvierian view 

 of the zoological position of the Sloths, as members of one of the 

 lowest and most aberrant orders of Mammalia ; and all oppose 

 themselves to the promotion of the Sloths to the Primates, and 

 to their separation from the terrestrial Edentata, which afford 

 in the Ant-eaters and Pangolins, the Echidna and Ornithoryn- 

 chus, so many additional retrograde steps towards the Ovipar- 

 .ous classes. 



It would be tedious to reiterate the special and gradational 

 affinities of the Mylodon and its congeners to the different fa- 

 milies of the Edentate order, since these have been so fully 

 elucidated in the comparisons of the several parts of their ske- 

 letons. They establish the general conclusion, that the exist- 

 ing arboreal and extinct terrestrial Sloths constitute a primary 

 division or tribe of the order Bruta or Edentata, equivalent to 

 the tribe Loricata or Armadillos, and to the true Edentata, or 

 the Ant eaters and Pangolins. 



The teeth and jaws give the essential character, and govern 

 the aliment of the new primary group, of which the name Phgl- 

 lophagay here proposed, indicates the characteristic and pecu- 

 liar diet. 



The characters of the tribe, of its families and genera, and 

 of the extinct species especially noticed in the present Memoir, 

 are given in the subjoined Synoptical Table. — Owen on the My- 

 lodon robustus, p. 162. 



et pedes lente contrahebat sicut dorinituriens solet." — Pison, Hist. Bras. p. 322, 

 quoted by Buffon, who well observes, " par ces rapports, ce quadrupede se rap- 

 proche non seulement de la tortue, dont il a deja la lenteur, mais encore des 

 autres reptiles, et de tous ceux qui n'ont pas un centre du sentiment unique et 

 bien distinct."- — Loc. cit. p. 45. The endowment of a persistent formative organ 

 of the teeth indicates another property in the Megatherioid animals, by which 

 they would resemble the cold blooded Reptiles, viz. longevity. 



