THE ICE AGE 



quite as effective. It stood on the ground and pulled 

 the trees down in order to eat the young branches. The 

 Mylodon, which lived at the same time, was not so big, 

 and its habits were similar. It had a number of 

 little bony pieces scattered in its skin in the region of the 

 back, like the pieces forming the bony case of the ancient 

 armadillos; but the pieces in this case were not closely 

 fitted together. 



It was supposed that the Mylodon, like all the peculiar 

 gigantic animals of South America, had become extinct 

 as long ago as the Mammoth (of which we shall say 

 more presently) or of the woolly rhinoceros which used 

 to haunt Fleet Street. All these extinct South American 

 animals were distinguished by peculiarly shaped teeth, 

 and had no teeth at all in front. They are called, there- 

 fore, Edentata, and their representatives to-day are much 

 smaller. 



But some years ago Dr. Nordenskjold, a Scandinavian 

 traveller, while exploring in Patagonia, found a vast cavern 

 called the Ultima Speranza cave, on the western coast. 

 From this cavern the settlers who lived close by had 

 removed an enormous piece of skin covered with greenish- 

 brown hair, and studded on its inner side with little knobs 

 of bone. The skin was dry but sound. When it was 

 placed in water it gave out a smell which, though un- 

 pleasant, was very interesting, for it showed that the 

 animal which had worn it could not have been dead 

 thousands or even many hundreds of years. It was, in 

 fact, evidently a piece of the skin of a Mylodon, which 

 had survived^in this region until modern times. 



276 



