CERTAIN BONES, &c. 259 



P. S. Miiirh loth, lygj. After the preceding cominii- 

 nlcatioa was ready to be delivered in to the Society, in a 

 * periodical publication from London 1 met with an ac- 

 count and drawing of the ficeleton of an animal dug- up 

 near ttie river La t-'lata in Paraguay, and now mounted in 

 the cabinet of Natural Hirtory of Madrid. The figure 

 is not [o done as to be relied on,, and the account is only 

 an abftradl from that of Cuvier and Koume. This fke- 

 leton is alfo of the clawed-kind, and having only four 

 teeth on each fide above and belo.v, all grinders, is in 

 this account clafled in the family of unquiculated qua- 

 drupeds deftitute of cutting teeth, and receives the 

 new denomination of megatherium, having nothing 

 of our animal but the leg and foot bones, we have few 

 points for a comparifon between them. They refemble 

 in their flature, that being 1 2 feet 9 inches long, and 

 6 feet 4-1 inches high, and ours by computation 5 feet 1.75 

 inches high : they are alike in the coloflal thicknels of the 

 thigh and leg bones alfo. They refemble too in having 

 claws : but thofe of the figure appear very fmall, and the 

 verbal defcription does not fatisfy us Mdiether the claw- 

 bone, or only its horny cover be large. They agree too 

 in the circumftance of the two bones of the fore-arm 

 being diftindl and moveable on each other ; which how- 

 ever is believed to be fo ufual as to form no mark of dif- 

 tindlion. They differ in the following circumftances, if 

 our relations are to be trufted. The megatherium is not 

 of the cat form, as are the lion, tyger, and panther, but 

 is faid to have ftriking relations in all parts of its body 

 with the bradypus, dalypus, pangolin, &c. According 

 to analogy then, it probably was not carnivorous, had 

 not the phofphoric eye, nor leonine roar. But to folve 

 fatisfa(i^orily the queftion of identity, the difcovery of 



* Monthly Magazine, Sep. 1796. 

 4. fore- 



