ANIMALS OF LONG AGO 



359 



almost anything in the way of bending or breaking even good-sized 

 trees. The jaws of the Megatherium suggest the possession of a 

 long tongue, which would be useful to its possessor for stripping 

 branches. It has been thought that living species of little Sloths 

 are descendants of these extinct giants ; but the notion is open to 

 question on several grounds. 



THE MYLODON.— The Megatherium was not the only big Sloth 

 of Pleistocene times. The Mylodon was contemporaneous with it, 

 but was not so huge; its length being some eleven feet. It was 

 similar in build in nearly all respects to its bigger cousin, and like 

 it was a vegetable feeder. Sir E. Ray Lankester in his Extinct 

 Animals relates facts which go to prove that the Mylodon was 

 actually in existence at the same time as man. He tells us that 

 some years ago a Dr. Nordenskjold discovered a cavern at the end 

 of a fiord near the Chilian coast, and in this cavern some white 

 settlers had found and removed thence a big piece of skin covered 

 with greenish-brown hair and studded on the inner side with little 

 knobs of bone. This turned out to be a portion of the skin of a 

 Mylodon. Dr. Moreno, of the La Plata Museum, explored the 

 cave and gathered an immense quantity of bones as well as more 

 pieces of hairy skin. The cavern had probably been inhabited a 

 long time ago by Indians, for a number of the bones had been cut 

 or broken by human agency in order that the marrow might be 

 extracted for food. The same writer continues to tell us that 

 Mylodons had evidently lived in the cave, for big balls of dung 

 made up of the refuse of masticated grass were found ; and the 

 discovery of a large quantity of cut grass suggested the idea that 

 the Indians had actually kept the Mylodons alive in the cavern and 

 fed them with hay. If this last surmise is true, it would seem 

 that Mylodons were amenable to human discipline and could be 

 to some extent domesticated. However that might be, the animals 

 are now extinct, and their extinction, like that of the Dodo and the 

 Moa, has been hastened by man. It seems a pity that so interesting 

 a creature has not been preserved so that its habits might be 

 observed in a living state. It should be added that the bones of at 

 least twenty Mylodons were found in the cavern referred to. 



SCELIDOTHERIUM. — Among the extinct Sloths mention should 

 also be made of the Scelidotherium, literally, the limb beast, so 

 called on account of its conspicuously long limbs. It was the size 

 of a Polar Bear. Charles Darwin, in his South American travels, 



