EDENTATA. 93 



seems to have amused herself by producing something imperfect and grotesque. 

 The only genus now in existence is 



BRADYPUS, Lin. 



The Sloths have cylindrical molars, and sharp canini longer than those 

 molars, two mammae on the breast, and ringers united by the skin, and only 

 marked externally by enormous compressed and crooked nails, which, when at 

 rest, are always bent towards the palm of the hand, or the sole of the foot. 

 The hind feet are obliquely articulated on the leg, and rest only upon their 

 outer edge ; the phalanges of the toes are articulated by a close ginglymus, and 

 the first, at a certain age, becomes soldered to the bones of the metacarpus 

 or metatarsus, which also, in time, for want of use, experience the same fate. 

 To this inconvenience in the organisation of the extremities is added another, 

 not less great, in their proportions. The pelvis is so large, and their thighs 

 so much inclined to the sides, that they cannot approximate their knees. 

 Their gait is the necessary effect of such a disproportioned structure. They 

 live in trees, and never remove from the one they are on until they have 

 stripped it of every leaf, so painful to them is the requisite exertion to reach 

 another. It is even asserted that to avoid the trouble of a regular descent, 

 they let themselves fall from a branch. The female produces but a single 

 young one at a birth, which she carries on her back. 



Bradypus tridactylus, Lin. (The AT.) A species in which sluggishness, 

 and all the details of the organisation which pro- 

 duce it, are carried to the highest degree. The 

 thumb and the little toe, reduced to small rudiments, 

 are hidden under the skin, and soldered to the meta- 

 tarsus and metacarpus; the clavicle, also reduced to 

 a rudiment, is firmly united to the acromion. The 

 arms are double the length of the legs; the hair on the head, back, and 

 limbs is long, coarse, and non-elastic, something like dried hay, which gives 

 it a most hideous aspect. Its colour is grey, the back being frequently spotted 

 with white and brown. It is as large as a cat, and is the only mammiferous 

 animal known which has nine cervical vertebrae. 



F. Cuvier applies the name of BRADYPUS to those species only which have 

 two nails to the fore feet; the CHOL.EPUS, Illig. Their canini are larger and 

 more pointed, and they are wholly destitute of a tail ; only one species is 

 known, the UNAU (B. didactylus, Lin.), less uniform in its organisation than the 

 Ai, and considerably larger. These animals are natives of the hot parts 

 of America, and possess powerful means of defence in their nails against the 

 carnivorous animals of that country. 



Fossil skeletons of two Edentata of great size have been discovered in 

 America, one of which, the MEGATHERIUM, has a head very similar to that of 

 the sloths, but deficient as to canini, and approaching in other parts of the 

 skeleton partly to the sloths, and partly to the ant-eaters. It is twelve feet 

 long, and six or seven high. The other, the MEGALONYX, is rather smaller 



