The Sloths, Ant-eaters, and Armadillos 



337 



a. perfectly topsy-turvy manner, inasmuch as it moves from bough to bough with its legs up 

 in the air and its back towards the ground. It walks and sleeps suspended beneath the 

 boughs instead of balanced above them, securely holding itself by means of powerful hooked 

 claws on the fore and hind feet. This method of locomotion, so remarkable in a mammal, 

 coupled with the deliberate fashion in which it moves, and the air of sadness expressed in its 

 quaint physiognomy large-eyed, snub-nosed, and earless on which there seems to dwell an 

 ever-present air of resignation, led the great Buffon to believe that the sloth was a creature 

 afflicted of God for some hidden reason man could not fathom! His sympathy was as 

 certainly wasted as his hasty conclusion was unjustified. There can be no doubt but that the 

 life led by the sloth is at least as blissful as that of its more lively neighbours the spider 

 monkeys, for instance. Walking beneath the boughs comes as natural to the sloth as walking 

 on the ceiling to the fly. 



The sloth sleeps, as we have already remarked, suspended from a bough. During this 

 time the feet are drawn close together, and the head raised up and placed between the 

 fore legs, as in the cobego, 

 which we depicted asleep on 

 page 170, as our readers will 

 remember. In the sleeping 

 position the sloth bears a 

 striking resemblance to the 

 stump of a lichen-covered 

 bough, just as the cobego 

 resembles a fruit. Thus is 

 protection from enemies 

 gained. The resemblance to 

 lichen is further aided by the 

 fact that the long, coarse hair 

 with which the sloth is clothed 

 becomes encrusted with a 

 peculiar green alga a lowly 

 form of vegetable growth 

 which lodges in certain grooves 

 or flutings peculiar to the 

 hair of this animal. Such a 

 method of protection is unique 

 amongst the Mammalia. As 

 the sloths sleep by day 

 and feed by night, the usefulness of such a method of concealment is beyond question. 



The strange form of locomotion of the sloths renders separate fingers and toes unnecessary, 

 and so the fingers and toes have come to be enclosed in a common fold of skin, extending 

 down to the base of the claws. 



The sloths stand out in strong contrast to the volatile spider monkeys, with whom they 

 share the forest; these have added a fifth limb in the shape of a prehensile tail, by which 

 they may suspend themselves at will. The sloths, on the contrary, have no tail ; they move 

 deliberately, and do not require it. The monkeys move by prodigious leaps, taken not seldom 

 by gathering impetus by swinging on their tails. 



The great naturalist Bates writes of the sloth : " It is a strange sight to watch this 

 uncouth creature, fit production of these silent shades, lazily moving from branch to branch. 

 Every movement betrays, not indolence exactly, but extreme caution. He never loses his hold 

 from one branch without first securing himself to the next. . . . After watching the animal 

 for about half an hour, I gave him a charge of shot; he fell with a terrific crash, but caught 

 a bough in his descent with his powerful claws, and remained suspended. Our Indian lad 



43 



Photo by L. Medium'., F.Z.S.] [North finckley. 



THREE-TOED SLOTH. 



A remarkable peculiarity about the three-toed sloths is the fact that they have no less than nine 

 vertebrae in the neck, instead of seven, as is usual among mammals. 



