SOUTH AMERICA. 165 



By means of this process, which is very simple, THIRD 



JOURNEY. 



we can now give every feature back again to the - 

 animal's face, after it has been skinned ; and 

 when necessary, stamp grief or pain, or pleasure, 

 or rage, or mildness upon it. But more of this 

 hereafter. 



Let us now turn our attention to the Sloth, whose The sloth, 

 native haunts have hitherto been so little known, 

 and probably little looked into. Those who have 

 written on this singular animal, have remarked 

 that he is in a perpetual state of pain, that he is 

 proverbially slow in his movements, that he is 

 a prisoner in space, and that as soon as he has 

 consumed all the leaves of the tree upon which 

 he had mounted, he rolls himself up in the form 

 of a ball, and then falls to the ground. This is 

 not the case. 



If the naturalists who have written the history 

 of the sloth had gone into the wilds, in order 

 to examine his haunts and economy, they would 

 not have drawn the foregoing conclusions ; they 

 would have learned, that though all other quad- 

 rupeds may be described while resting upon the 

 ground, the sloth is an exception to this rule, 

 and that his history must be written while he is 

 in the tree. 



This singular animal is destined by nature to 

 be produced, to live and to die in the trees ; and 

 to do justice to him, naturalists must examine him 

 in this his upper element. He is a scarce and 



