516 Geological Societt/. 



" Descrlptloil of a Tooth and part of the Skeleton of the Glyptodon, 

 a large quadruped of the Edentate order, to which belongs the tes- 

 sellated l5ony armour figured by Mr. Clift in his memoir on the re- 

 mains of the Megatherium, brought to England by Sir Woodbine 

 Parish, F.G.S." 



The first notice of the remains of a fossil large edentate Mammal 

 associated with a tessellated bony armour, is an extract from a letter 

 addressed by Don Damario Larraiiaga, Cure of Monte Video, to 

 M. Auguste St. Hilaire, and appended to Cuvier's account of the 

 MegatheriumintheOssemensFossiles, t.v.p. 179.(1823). The bones 

 were discovered near the surface in alluvium, in the Rio del Sauce, 

 a branch of the Saulis grande, and consisted of a femur 6 to 8 

 inches in width, but short, and in every respect like the femur of an 

 Armadillo ; also a portion of a tessellated bony armour. The tail is 

 described as very short and very stout, and to have had a bony 

 armour, which was not verticellate or disposed in rings. Similar 

 fossils are said to occur in analogous strata near the lake Mirine, on 

 the frontier of the Portuguese colonies. The notion that the remains 

 found in the Rio del Sauce belonged to the Megatherium, rests solely 

 on the circumstance of Don Damario Larraiiaga having inserted the 

 word Megatherium as the synonym of his gigantic fossil " Dasypus." 

 Je ne vous ecris point sur mon Dasypus, {Megatherium, Cuvier.) 



The next observations bearing upon tlie present subject are con- 

 tained in Weiss's Geological Memoir on the provinces of San Pedro 

 do Sul, and the Banda Oriental, (Berlin Trans., 1827). These re- 

 mains consisted of part of a femur of a Megatherium, without any 

 associated armour, found at a deserted Indian camp near the Queguay, 

 a tributary of the Uruguay ; of portions of osseous tessellated armour, 

 apparently unaccompanied by bones, discovered on the Arapey chico, 

 in the province of Monte Video ; and of bones of the extremities 

 and fragments of armour found iiear the Rio Janeiro. The whole of 

 these remains were collected by Sellow, the Prussian traveller, and 

 after his death the last-named collection of bones and armour were 

 submitted to Prof. D'Alton, by whom they have been described, 

 (Berlin Trans., 1833,) and who states, that they are not the remains 

 of the Megatherium, but of a large edentate animal more nearly allied 

 to Dasypus. 



In 1832, Mr. Clift laid before the Geological Society a memoir 

 on the remains of the Megatherium brought to England from Buenos 

 Ayres by Sir Woodbine Parish*. In the collection of which they 

 formed a part, were fragments of bony tessellated armour, one 

 of which Avas figured but not described by Mr. Clift, because the 

 fragments were not associated Avith the remains of the Megatherium ; 

 there were also a portion of a jaw and several other bones, which 

 were found in connexion with portions of a bony armour in the bed of 

 a rivulet at Villanueva, about 9.5 miles south of Buenos Ayres. On the 

 examination of the last-mentioned remains when they first arrived in 

 England, it was evident both to Mr. Clift and Mr. Owen, particularly 

 from the conformation of the alveoli in the jaw, that the bones did 

 • See L. & E. Phil. Mag. vol. i. p. 233. 



