214 To the River Plate and Back 



published a fully illustrated account of the various ob- 

 jects thus far found in the cave, the paper having been 

 prepared by Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward in collabora- 

 tion with Dr. Moreno. Dr. Woodward referred the 

 specimens to the genus Grypotherium, originally set up 

 by Reinhardt in 1879 in the twelfth volume of the 

 Proceedings of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, 

 for the reception of some fragments, which had been 

 discovered in another locality. The relationship of 

 Grypotherium to Mylodon and the other long extinct 

 gravigrade edentates of South America was pointed out 

 and explained. 



But before the appearance of Dr. Woodward's 

 scholarly paper, the reading public not only of Argentina 

 but of the entire world had been regaled with a series 

 of sensational accounts, affirming that in the remote 

 regions of Argentina or southern Chili there still existed 

 a surviving representative of the family of the ground- 

 sloths, of which the colossal Megatherium is the species 

 best known to the public. The animal said to be 

 roaming in the wilds was identified with the Yemisch, of 

 which everybody in Argentina had heard at some time 

 or other. The authority for these tales was none other 

 than Sefior Florentino Ameghino. He set the ball 

 rolling by privately printing and circulating a paper 

 under date of August 2, 1898, entitled "Premiere Notice 

 sur le Neomylodon listai, un Representant vivant des 

 anciens Edentes Gravigrades fossiles de r Argentina.' 

 In November of the same year this article appeared in 

 the form of an English translation, which was published 

 in Natural Science, volume xiii., pp. 324-326. In 

 this paper Ameghino recounts that a deceased friend of 

 his, the late Ramon Lista, had once told him that he 

 had come across an animal, which he had failed to get, 



