ROOM VI. MEGATHERIUM. 477 



Sloths, Ant-eaters, and Armadillos, are existing examples; yet the 

 largest of these does not exceed a dog in bulk, and is scarcely so high, 

 while the fossil types surpass the rhinoceros in magnitude. The Eden- 

 tata link together the Ungviculata and the Ungulata, for their toes are 

 generally encased in thick skin, or scales, and terminate in strong, 

 arched, solid claws. The extinct forms approach nearer the pachyderms 

 than any existing genus of the Order, and they present transitional 

 characters connecting the very dissimilar tribes of the Ant-eaters and 

 the Sloths. The living Edentata are inhabitants of hot climates, and 

 are abundant in South America ; and there are a few species in Africa 

 and Asia. The fossil species are for the most part from South America, 

 but remains of Edentata have been discovered in the tertiary deposits of 

 Central France and Germany, proving, that in the Eocene period ani- 

 mals of this order were inhabitants of Europe. 



The bones of the extinct colossal Edentata are chiefly found in the 

 alluvial loam and sand which compose the subsoil of the Pampas of 

 South America ; those vast plains which, for 900 miles, present a 

 waving sea of grass. The deposits of the Pampas have evidently been 

 formed in a bay or arm of the sea, into which floated the carcasses of the 

 animals which then inhabited the neighbouring dry land. 



Our distinguished traveller, Mr. Darwin, in relating the discovery of 

 the Scelidotherium (pp. 77 and 480), states, "that the beds containing the 

 fossil skeletons consist of stratified gravel and reddish mud, and stand 

 only from fifteen to twenty feet above the level of high water ; a proof 

 that the elevation of the land has been inconsiderable since the great 

 quadrupeds wandered over the surrounding plains, and that the external 

 features of the country were then very nearly the same as now. The 

 number of the remains of these quadrupeds imbedded in the vast 

 estuary deposits which form the Pampas and cover the granitic rocks 

 of Banda Oriental, must be extraordinarily great. I believe, a straight 

 line drawn in any direction through the country would cut through 

 some skeleton or bones. As far as I am aware, not one of these animals 

 perished, as was formerly supposed, in the marshes or muddy river-beds 

 of the present land, but their bones have been exposed by the streams 

 intersecting the subaqueous deposit in which they were originally im- 

 bedded. We may conclude that the whole area of the Pampas is one 

 wide sepulchre of these extinct gigantic quadrupeds." 1 



THE MEGATHERIUM. This stupendous extinct animal of the Sloth 

 tribe was first made known to European naturalists by a skeleton, 

 almost entire, dug up in 1789, on the banks of a river in South 

 America, named the Luxan, about three-miles south-east of Buenos 

 Ayres ; the specimen was sent to Madrid, and fixed up in the Museum, 

 in the form represented in numerous works on natural history. A 

 second skeleton was exhumed at Lima, in 1795 ; and of late years Sir 

 Woodbine Parish, Mr. Darwin, and other naturalists, have sent bones 

 of the Megatherium, and other allied genera, to England. 



The model of the Megatherium, Lign. 112, has been constructed 

 with great care from the original bones, in the Wall-cases 9, 10, and in 

 the Hunterian Museum. The attitude given to the skeleton, with the 



1 " Journal of a Naturalist," by Charles Darwin, Esq. F.K.S. &c. 



