GROUND-SLOTH FROM A CAVE IN PATAGONIA 
By W. D. Matthew 
OLONEL ROOSEVELT has recently 
ic placed on deposit with the Museum 
three fossil specimens of remarkable 
interest. These are a fragment of the skin 
and hair, a piece of the bone and a mass of 
dung of an extinct ground-sloth from the cave 
at Last Hope Inlet in Patagonia, presented to 
him by Senor Moreno, director of the La 
Plata Museum, near Buenos Aires. 
The great ground-sloths of South America 
are among the most remarkable and inter- 
esting of the giant quadrupeds which formerly 
inhabited that country. Many skeletons 
have been found, especially in the Pampean 
formation of Argentina, and a fine series of 
them is shown in the Quaternary mammal 
hall. They were supposed however to have 
been extinct for many thousands of years, 
and it was a disputed point whether or no 
they were contemporaries of primitive man 
in that continent. The exploration of this 
cave about fifteen years ago furnished abun- 
dant proof that one species at least of these 
strange animals survived to within a few 
centuries of the present day, and was not 
only contemporary with primitive man but 
was in some sense of the word domesticated 
by him. Numerous bones and pieces of 
skin were disinterred from a layer composed 
of dust and ground-sloth droppings beneath 
the floor in a dry protected corner of the 
cave, in company with tools or weapons of 
stone and bone and bearing unmistakable 
marks of being cut and fashioned artificially. 
Bundles of grass spread as though intended 
for fodder, and other indications showed that 
the animals had been stabled or imprisoned 
within the cave and fed by their captors. 
The dry floor protected against damp and 
weather has preserved skin and bones with 
bits of tendon and dried flesh clinging to 
them, and the hair is often in perfect condi- 
tion. Making all reasonable allowance for 
these favorable conditions, one can hardly 
suppose that these remains are more than a 
few centuries old. There is reason to believe 
that they are not much less than that, and 
that they antedated the arrival of white 
settlers in this region. ‘ 
The skin is covered with a thick coat of 
golden brown hair, of the same peculiar coarse 
brittle texture as that of the modern tree- 
sloth, the nearest living relative of the great 
ground-sloths. In the under side of the skin 
are imbedded numerous rounded nodules 
of bone studded thickly enough to make it a 
fairly effective defense against the attacks 
of carnivora. Quantities of similar nodules 
have been found associated with petrified 
skeletons of ground-sloths and it had been 
supposed but never before proved that they 
were imbedded in the skin during life. 
The bone fragment has remnants of the 
dried flesh and tendons still adherent, and 
shows clearly the marks of the tools used in 
cutting it up. The mass of dried dung, 
utterly unlike that of any living animal of 
that region completes the illusion. It is 
difficult indeed to believe that these are relics 
of animals extinct for some hundreds of years. 
But the rumors that the Grypotherium still 
survives in the wilds of Patagonia, based 
probably on the extraordinary freshness of 
these remains, have been repeatedly investi- 
gated by subsequent explorers and found to 
be baseless. 
Miss Dora Keen of Philadelphia, who visited 
the locality a few years ago, has also presented 
to the Museum a sample of hair of the ground- 
sloth taken from this cave. 
THE SOMAIKOLI DANCE AT SICHUMOVI 
By F. S. Dellenbaugh 
RTICLES in the March number of the 
JOURNAL on dances of American In- 
dians recalled to me that I have seen 
several Indian dances in years past. 
In 1884 I spent some weeks on the East Mesa 
256 
of what we then called the Moquis Villages, 
now the Hopi, at that time a somewhat 
remote region. There were no white men in 
that country except three or four at Keam’s 
trading post, fourteen miles from the East 
