m the Museum of Buenos Ayres. 88 



don*, and also introduces three new species, which he terms 

 Ghfptodon omatus, G. tuberculatus, and G. reticulatta, founding 

 the specific differences on the varied form of the plates of the 

 surface of the shell. But as the foot of the animal described in 

 the last publication of Owen was incomplete, Miiller.the celebrated 

 physiologist of Berlin, published a fresh description of the entire 

 foot in the Transactions of the Academy of Berlin for 1846. 



All these descriptions were founded on specimens discovered 

 in the province of Buenos Ayres or in the Banda Oriental. 

 There are undoubtedly remains of the same animal in other 

 parts of South America, but in no other part of the world. In 

 Brazil, a Danish naturalist, the learned Dr. Lund, occupied him- 

 self for a long time in the study of the fossil bones discovered 

 in the natural caverns of Minas Geraes. Amongst these, remaiiit 

 of the Ghjptodon were discovered by him ; but as he was not 

 aware of the works recently published in Europe, he described 

 the animal under a new name, terming it Hoplophonu, from the 

 " strong shell," and signalized three species, Hoplophonu Sel- 

 lotpii, H. euphractus, and H. mwiort. A year afterwards, he 

 published in the same 'Transactions' (vol. ix. 1842) the de- 

 scription of new fragments, and amongst others the teeth, and 

 the five sacral vertebrse in one piece. 



Such was the state of the scientific knowledge of Glyptodon 

 before the publication of the work of M. Nodot, Director of the 

 Public Museum of Dijon in France, to whom a French resident 

 had transmitted from Buenos Ayres many portions of the Glyp^ 

 todon and an almost complete shell. This work has not yet 

 fallen into my hands, and for this reason I am ignorant of ita 

 contents excepting from the notices in scientific journals, which 

 state that its author recognizes fourteen species of GlyptodoHf 

 dividing them into two divisions, Glyptodon and Sehisfopleurum, 

 founded respectively on the Ghjptodon clavipes and the Glt/plotUm 

 tuber culat us of Owen. To the Glyptodon belong twelve species, 

 which are again subdivided into two groups by the form of the 

 tail, which in some is short and conical, and in others is lon§ 

 and cylindrical. 



Finally Prof. Huxley, of the College of Surgeons of London, 

 has published some notices on an incomplete skeleton presented 

 to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons by Scfior Don 

 Joan Nepomuceno Terrero, of Buenos Ayres ; and the brother 

 of this gentleman, Don Federico Terrero, has published a trans- 

 lation of Huxley's description in the ' Nacion Argentina ' of the 

 1st of July of the current year, to which he has added some 



* Descriptive Catalogue of the CoUectioa of the Royal College of Sur- 

 geons, vol. i. London, lliMS. 

 t Trans. Roval Academy of Copenhagen, vol. riii. 1841 . 



6* 



