82 Dr. Burmeister on the Species of Glyptodon 
up to the present time is unique in the museums of the civilized 
world. Sefor Don David Lanato having presented this precious 
specimen to the Public Museum, I set it up myself, during the 
first months of my direction (1860), with the assistance of some 
friends and skilled workmen, who helped me in the steel- and 
iron-work, I myself superintending their manual labour. To 
clearly explain the parts of this antediluvian animal which are 
new to science, and those which are already known, I must give 
some historical notices of previous publications on the same 
subject. 
The first notice of this animal will be met with in the work of 
the celebrated Cuvier*, in which that author states, in a note, 
that Sefior Damaso Larrafiaga, of Montevideo, discovered in 
Banda Oriental the shell of a gigantic animal, which probably 
belonged to Megatherium. The Prussian traveller Sellow was. 
the first who (in the year 1825) sent specimens of this shell to’ 
Europe, where they were described by the celebrated mineralo- 
gist’ Weiss, in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1827, 
without a knowledge of the zoological affinities of the animal to 
which they belonged, the author being, however, disposed to 
regard them as the’armour of Megatherium—an opinion which, 
some years after, was directly accepted and published by the 
English author Clift. Buckland, in his ‘ Geology’{, expressed 
the same opinion. With the specimens of the shell which were 
then obtained, some parts of the skeleton were also sent to 
Berlin, and, with those which were examined by my friend and 
colleague in the University of Halle, Dr. D’Alton, this celebrated 
anatomist published, in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy 
for 1833, the description of the incomplete forearm and some 
foot-bones of this animal, he calculating that it bore an affinity 
to the Armadillo, but that, until the entire form was discovered, 
it would be futile to assign to it a specific name. The celebrated 
English anatomist Owen coincided in this judgment, five years 
after, when he described the shell and some portions of the 
skeleton which had been recently sent to London by Charles 
Darwin and by the English Minister in Buenos Ayres, Sir 
Woodbine Parish§, and gave to it the new name of Glyptodon 
clavipes, derived from the carved [or fluted] form of the teeth 
and the thick form of the feet. To the description of these 
parts the author has made several additions in his work on the 
fossil bones in the collection of the College of Surgeons of Lon- 
foo ne sur les Ossemens Fossiles, &c., vol. v. part 1. p. 191, ed. 
t N otice on the Megatherium, Trans. Geol. Soc. 1835. 
t Bridgewater Treatise. 8vo, London, 1837. 
§ Trans. Geol. Soe. vol. vi. p- 81; Zoology of the Beagle, vol. i. 
