THE EDENTATA, OR ANIMALS POOR IN TEKTH. 119 



reach, every indication in the skull of the size, 

 strength, flexibility, and prehensile power of the 

 tongue harmonises with the foregoing teleological 

 conclusions. The Megatherioids, like the giraffe, 

 thus plucked off the foliage on which they fed. 

 In the ridged crowns of the grinders of the Giant 

 Ground- Sloth we discern the power of crushing 

 coarser parts a greater proportion of twigs and 

 stems, e.g. of the foliage, than the diminutive Tree- 

 Sloths take. It needed only evidence of the occa- 

 sional occurrence of what might happen to a beast 

 in the fall of a tree which it had uprooted, to seal 

 the foregoing physiological inferences with the 

 stamp of truth : and the skeleton of the Mylodon 

 in the Hunterian Museum shows that evidence 

 above the right orbit and at the back part of the 

 cranium.' 



Those who can agree with Owen's whole deduc- 

 tion as to the tearing down of trees will also accept 

 his ingenious explanation of the cracks in the skull 

 of the famous specimen' in the Hunterian Collection 

 of the College of Surgeons. 



But although this account and our observations 

 concerning the existing Bradypodae throw light 

 on the structure and habits of the fossil group, 

 they do not tell us anything about the real an- 



