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Dermal Scutes of the Giant Sloth. 



which would show the connection. Jn this we are not disappointed, for 

 in examining the fossils of South America, there was found a. very 

 large strange animal, protected by a skin development of an almost 

 complete bony armor, which formed a solid coat of mail. This differed 

 from that of the armadillos in that the carapace of the latter was not 

 a solid shield, but the bucklers in front and behind were connected by 

 a number of movable, overlapping bands, which in sonic cases admitted 

 the rolling of the animal up into a ball. But this giant tilyptodont, as 

 it is called, walked around carrying its immense armor very much after 

 the fashion of a great tortoise. This shield must have been very heavy, 

 and doubtless had something to do with causing this animal to have 

 very stout limbs. in other species this armor was beautifully orna- 

 mented, and all was surmounted by a heavy horny covering. The 

 next animal had the armor made of plates arranged in rows separate 

 from each other upon the sides of the body and the tail, had isolated 

 bony tissues filled in between with smaller scutes. Strange enough it 

 is that another fossil should be found in South America, a relative 

 of the armadillos, which had plates, the outer surface of which was 

 smooth, each being perforated with three or four large holes for the 

 passage of blood vessels; which fact would indicate that the whole was 

 invested with a continuous leathery skin. Thus the bony plates would 

 be buried beneath the skin, or within it, just as in our giant ground 

 sloth. One more species was found, one of this kind, a very little crea- 

 ture only two feet long, which had incipient movable bands in the 

 margins of the middle region of the carapace, which remarkable fact 



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