60 On the Teeth of the Megatherium. 



The form of the teeth, and the structure of the claw, lead to 

 a belief that they subsisted on vegetables, and principally on 

 roots, their claws appearing well adapted to this purpose. 



They are placed by Cuvier among the Edentes, as occupy- 

 ing a place between the Sloth, (Bradypus Lin.) and the Ant 

 Hater, (Myrmecophagus Lin.) though much nearer to the 

 former than the latter. 



St. Fond, without attempting to invalidate the arguments 

 of Cuvier, which led him to place the Megatherium in this 

 family, conceives its great size to be incompatible with the 

 habits of a Sloth or an Ant Eater ; he proposes that it shall be 

 laid aside until further investigations shall arrange it in its 

 place, as he supposes that it is not sufficiently known to justify 

 any present classification. 



It has already been remarked, that these species have been 

 found only in South America, where alone are found in living 

 animals, the nearest resemblance to this extinct race. 



" The teeth of the Megatherium are sixteen in number, 

 each about two inches square, presenting rounded angles 

 with a groove between, on the external and internal sur- 

 face, and terminating where the fangs commence their se- 

 paration ; the root or fang gradually diminishing in size 

 as it descends. Each tooth has four angles, two external and 

 two internal ; the upper surface has a depression separated by 

 four points ; the form or depression of the cavity being pyra- 

 midal, finishing a little the deepest in front. The exact weight 

 of the four first teeth, is twenty ounces, that of the others, 

 twenty-six ounces." Such is the description given by Mr. 

 Bru, curator of the royal cabinet of Madrid, who arranged 

 the first skeleton, and published an account of it in 1756. 



Having thus given as concise a history of this animal as is 

 consistent with the importance of the subject, I proceed to treat 

 of the collection of teeth recently presented to me from Skida- 

 way Island. It consists of one tooth entire, with the exception 

 of the fang which is broken transversely off, and the half of 

 another, with the fang separated in a similar manner. 



