480 PETRIFACTIONS AND THEIR TEACHINGS. CHAP. VT. 



original to have consisted of plants and leaves or the young branches 

 of trees. My friend Sir Woodbine Parish, whose long residence in 

 South America enabled his active and sagacious mind thoroughly to 

 investigate the phenomena connected with the ancient fauna of that 

 country, has solved the problem as to the source whence the Mega- 

 theria and allied herbivorous animals could have derived support, by 

 pointing out the Agave or American Aloe, as yielding an ample supply 

 of food, and of a kind, for the comminution of which the teeth of the 

 colossal edentata appear to have been specially adapted. 



MYLODON. Of this genus, which is closely allied to the Megatherium, 

 there are bones, teeth, and jaws from South America, inEoom II., ante, 

 p. 77. 1 



With the huge animals above described, were associated those not 

 less gigantic in relation to their modern prototypes, the Glyptodon, 

 (ante, p. 359,) and the Chlamydotherium, which were covered by a tesse- 

 lated osseous cuirass, like the existing Armadillos of the present day. 



SCELIDOTHERIUM. The animals of this genus are allied to the 

 Megatherium. Mr. Darwin obtained an almost entire skeleton of the 

 S. leptocephalum ; the original must have been as large as a Rhinoceros. 

 Four species have been discovered ; there are some fine bones of two or 

 three species from the caves of Brazil, in Wall-case C. 



Such were the gigantic mammalia that inhabited the dry land of 

 South America at a comparatively recent period ; and it is worthy of 

 especial consideration, that though these types have been long extinct, 

 Sloths, Ant-eaters, and Armadillos, are still the characteristic mammalia 

 of that country, and these diminutive forms are the only living repre- 

 sentatives of the colossal Edentata of the ancient world. 



CHAPTER VI. PART VI. 

 FOSSIL MAMMALIA OF THE CAVERNS. 



OSSIFEROUS CAVES OF THE BRAZILS. Wall-case C. The fossil remains 

 in this cabinet were obtained by Dr. Lund and M. Claussen, from cer- 

 tain limestone caverns in the Brazils, which, like those of Europe, 

 abound in bones of mammalia, imbedded in a reddish coloured loam, 

 and more or less incrusted with stalagmite. The animals belong 

 for the most part to genera still inhabiting the American Conti- 

 nent, intermingled with the extinct types of some of the Edentata, 



1 See " Wonders of Geology," p. 168. A splendid skeleton of this 

 animal is preserved in the Hunterian Museum, and is described and illus- 

 trated in a " Memoir on the Mylodon robustus, by Professor Owen ;" 

 published by the Royal College of Surgeons. 



