MEfiATIIEIUUM. 225 



phicking leaves. The real objection to this, however, lies in the fact that the sub-orbital foramina 

 are too small to have siipj^lied a trunk of the size of an Elephant's with vessels and nerves. If a 

 trunk did exist it could not have exceeded in size that of the Tapir. There is evidence, however, in 

 the strength and articulation of the hyoid bones (which by a rare chance have been recovered with 

 one of the skeletons), and the unusual area of the foramina for the nerves of the muscles of the 

 tongae, that it possessed a long tongue of great size and power, perhaps not without affinity to 

 the round, slender tongue of the Ant-eater (although adapted for another purpose and of yevy 

 different pi-oportions). The fore-part of the under-jaw projects in front with a long rounded groove 

 in tlie middle, apparently for the reception of this long cylindrical tongue ; such a tongue would 

 render a trunk, of any size, not only an unnecessary appendage, but positively an encumbrance. 

 It is not imjirobable, however, that it had well-developed upper lips, for the number of small 

 foramina in the anterior termination of the under-jaw show that it had a largely developed and 

 very sensitive under-lip, and tliis would almost (although not absolutely necessarilj-) implj- a cor- 

 resijondingly developed upper lip to meet it. 



I have said that Professor Owen's conclusions arc generally adopted. The onlj' exception would 

 appear to be the Professor himself, for both the skeletons of the Mylodom and Megatheriiim, set 

 up under his direction in the Royal College of Surgeons and British Museum, are put up, in 

 contravention of his views, in the position of a auadruraanous animal about to clamber up a tree. 

 Agassiz obj: ets to this position. He w-as of opinion that instead of being set up so, it should 

 have been placed in a crouching attitude, with the hind-legs bent, sufficiently to allow the tail to 

 touch the ground, — with the head bent down between the fore-legs, the broad chest resting upon 

 the ground, supported b}' the fore-legs, extended in such a way that they should rest for nearly 

 their whole length, and leave simph* a free play for the extremities to reach out beyond the head.* 

 His suggestions have not, however, been followed in his own adopted country. The cast of one in 

 the Museum of Boston, in the United States, has been moiuited in even a more arboreal attitude 

 than our own. It appears to me that it can have only had two characteristic attitudes, the one 

 that of a burrowing animal, something like that described bj' Agassiz, lying flat on the earth, 

 with its back bent up and shovelling out the earth with its hind-feet, and the other, which I should 

 have preferred, standing erect, resting on the tarsi of its hind-legs and on its tail, like a dog 

 begging, and clasping the trunk of a tree to its breast. 



Before reverting to our interrupted argument, from which this is scarcely a digression, the 

 leader may be plea.sed to notice two things, — one, the fitness of the structure of the animal to tlie 

 surface of the earth on which it lived, — a fine alluvial deposit, which its claws would shovel up with. 

 the greatest ease. Darwin sjjeaks of the speed with which its relative the Aj-madillo makes its way 

 (hrough the soil : " In the course of a day's ride near Bahia Blanca several were generally met with. 

 The instant one was perceived it was necessary, in order to catch it, almost to tumble off one's horse ; 

 for in soft soil the animal burrowed so cpiickly, that its hind-quarters would almost disappear before 

 one could alight." f 



The other thing to bo noticed is that the forest region in North and South America must tlien 

 have been greatly more extensive than it now is. The northern half of the Pampas must probably 

 have been covered with trees, which must have extended as far north as Oregon and Nebraska, 

 with scarcely an interruption, except from the Rocky ]\Iountains, so far as then in existence. 



* "Boston Soc. Nat. Hist." May, 18C3, p. 19?. t "Journal of a Katurali.st," 2iid edition, p. 06. London, 1845. 



G G 



