Lect. IV.] PLUCKING UP CEDARS. 123 



lazily dozing a montli or two during the dry season, and then, hungry 

 and wet, in the heavy downpour of the beginning rainy season, 

 setting to work to break his fast. As far as can be judged l)y the tools 

 he had to work with — paws a yard, and claws a foot, in lengtli — 

 the first thing to be done was to throw out a few hundredweights of 

 earth from the roots of some large tree. 



Kow he changes his tactics ; he has good collar-bones, and 

 well-shaped arms for eniln'acing ; so, bear-like, he hugs the 

 tree upon whicli his desires are sut, and, busily digging still, 

 not now with his fore, but with his hind, paws, his great weight 

 resting upon his haunches and his tail, he, with many groans, 

 sways the big tree to and fro ; at last with a great crash it falls, 

 not, hoAvever, without giving him some sense of its Aveight, for it 

 Avas a tree worthy to grow in a forest trampled upon by this atlantean 

 Sloth. 



That large crack in tlie outer table of his skull is of no consecpience ; 

 his small brain is a long way off, and there are many empty cavities 

 to be found in a head like his; those broken tiles over the empty 

 spaces of his head Avill soon be mended, and Avhat would he 2/ai7i 

 to us, is to him a pleasant sense of tickling. 



But Sloths live in trees, climbing from Ijrancli to l)ranch, supine, 

 Avith strongly bent Avrists and hooked hngers ! Yes, I admit, such 

 Sloths as live in these degenerate days, but n.ot the Sloth 1 am 

 speaking of. Think, if you can, of a Sloth, half as thick again round 

 the Avaist as an Elej)hant ; Avith a tail as bulky as a dray-horse's chest ; 

 and feet as large as the many-knotted roots of the gum-tree ; think 

 I say, of such a Sloth climbing trees. Xo, it is your poor 

 little dAvarfed modern Sloth Avho climljs — not the large jNIega- 

 therium. 



Our gigantic Proq>ero has plucked up his cedar by its spurs; Jiis 

 niillstone-like teeth — he also is a Mylodon — and strong jaAvs Avill do the 

 rest; he need not hurry and he Avill not. He has "blessed his maAv " 

 to this good hour, and Avill noAV enjoy himself. The sorroAV of it is 

 that he is not to this day digging up, pulling doAvn, and eating, the 

 trees of the forest, for us to see the sight. For death has gnaAved 

 upon these huge beasts ; they are laid in the grave — their eternal 

 dwelling. 



Speaking of such an one going doAvn to the nether parts of the 



