marks tins small form as the common ancestor of the living armadillos 

 .•ind the armored glyptodonts, an<l in the size is found the resemblance 

 to the ground sloths. 



The giant ground sloth resembles living slotlis in the shape of the 



skull and dentition, while in the limb hones they resemble the ant- 

 eaters. The sloths of the Brea Beds therefore had their origin in 

 the Santa On/, beds of Argentine, from which place they spread over 

 South America and wandered in M ioeene times to North America, where 

 they appear in the Pliocene and Pleistocene formations. Thy roamed 

 as far north as Nebraska, east to Virginia, and west to the Brea Beds 

 of California, and the caves along the coast. By the time they arrived 

 lien-, they had grown to such enormous size as our specimens (Moro- 

 teriun). and the armor had become reduced to mere scutes scattered here 

 and there throughout the skin. 



The only probable successful enemy of the sloth was doubtless the 

 saber tooth tiger, which would leap upon the back id' this sluggish beast 

 and with a stab and a rip backwards, would lay open the flesh and 

 drink the copious flow of blood. Thus one by one, reduced by sudden 

 death and longer starvation, the most peculiar of all our wanderers to 

 the Brea Beds became extinct. 



Where these came from to South America is not known, but if we 

 regaril the Pangolins and Aardvarks of the old world and the fossil 

 specimens of doubtful affinity of Prance as related, then it is probable 

 that our forms came from the Old World by way of an Antarctic conti- 

 n< ut. 



It was in 17!»7 that our sagacious and philosophic President Thomas 

 Jefferson found the first material, the claw bones of this sloth in a 



Ribbons from an Asphaltum Sprinj 



43 



