A Mysterious Beast 215 



though he had shot at it a couple of times, which re- 

 sembled a pangolin, except that instead of being covered 

 with scales it was covered with hair. Lista had 

 expressed the opinion that, 'if not a pangolin, it was 

 certainly an edentate nearly allied to it. ' Ameghino 

 then went on to say: 



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

 learned traveler, was also a skillful 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 which was believed to be quite 

 extinct, a gravigrade edentate related to Mylodon and 

 Pseudolestodon. 



. * 



Lately, several little ossicles have been brought to me 

 from Southern Patagonia, and I have been asked to what 

 animal they could belong. What was my surprise on seeing 

 in my hand these ossicles in a fresh state, and, notwithstand- 

 ing that, absolutely similar to the fossil dermal ossicles of 

 the genus Mylodon, except only that they are of smaller 

 size, varying from nine to thirteen or fourteen millimeters 

 across. I have carefully studied these little bones from 

 every point of view without being able to discern any 

 essential difference from those found in a fossil state. 



These ossicles were taken from a skin, which was unfor- 

 tunately incomplete, and without any trace of the extremi- 

 ties. The skin, which was found on the surface of the 

 ground, and showed signs of being exposed for several 

 months to the action of the air, is in part discolored. It 

 has a thickness of about two centimeters, and is so tough 



