538 hisiuIlV oi' 



How far these may be considered as the unfinished produc- 

 tions of nature, I will not take upon me to determine ; if we 

 measure their happiness by our sensations, nothing, it is certain, 

 can be more miserable ; but it is probable, considered with re- 



liiin in liis proper haunts. His fore-leg?, or, more correctly speaking'. Ids 

 arms, are apparently much too long, while his liind-legs aie very short, and 

 look as if they could be bent almost to the shape of a corkscrew. Both the 

 lore and hiud legs, by their form, and by the manner in which they are joiu- 

 ed to the body, are quite incapacitated from acting iu a perpendicular direc- 

 tion, or in supporting it on the earth, as the bodies of other quadrupeds are 

 supported, by their legs. Hence, when you place him on the floor, his belly 

 touches the ground. Now, granted that he supported himself on his legs 

 like other animals, nevertheless he would be in pain, for Ju" has no soles U, 

 liis feet, and his claws are very sharp and long, and cirrved ; so that, were 

 his body supported by his feet, it would be by their extremities, just as your 

 body would be were you to throw yourself on all fours, and try to supiiort 

 it on the ends of your toes and fingers — a trying position. Were the iloor 

 of glass, or of a polished surface, the sloth would actually be quite station- 

 ai'y ; but as the ground is generally rough, with little protuberances upon 

 it, such as stone-, or roots of grass, &c., this just suits the sloth, and he 

 moves his fore-legs in all directions, in order to find something to lay hold of; 

 an<l when he liiis succeeded, he pulls himself forward, and is tints enabled to 

 tra\'el onwards, but at the same time iu so tiU"dy and awkward a manner, 

 as to acquire him the name of sloth. Indeed his looks and his gestures evi- 

 dently betray his luicomfortable situation; and as a sigh every now and 

 then escapes liim, we may be entitled to conclude that he is actually iu psiin. 



" Some years ago I kept a sloth in my room for several months. I often 

 took him out of the house, and placed liini upon the ground, in order to have 

 an op)jortunity of observing his motions. If the ground were rough, he 

 would pull himself forwards, by means of liis fore-legs, at a pretty good 

 pace ; and he invariably shaped liis course towards the nearest tree. But if 

 I put him upon a smooth and well-trodden part of the road, he appeared to 

 be in trouble and distress : his favourite abode was the back of a chair ; and 

 after getting- all his legs in a line upon the topmost part of it, he would liang 

 there for hours together, and often, with a low and inward cry, would seem 

 to invite me to take notice of him. 



" 'I'he sloth, iu its wild state, spends its whole life in the trees, and never 

 leaves them but through force, or by accident. An all-ruling Providence 

 lias ordered man to tread outlie surface of the earth, tlie eagle to so;ir in the 

 txi>ause of the skies, and the monkey and squirrel to inhabit the ti'ees : stiij 

 these may change tlieir relative situations without feeling much inconveni- 

 ence : hut the sloth is doomed to spend his whole Life in the trees ; and, 

 \\ liat is more extraordinary, not upon the branches, like the squirrel and 

 the monkey, but u7ider tliem. He moves suspended from the branch, he 

 rests suspended from it, and he sleeps suspended from it. To enable him to 

 do tliis, he must have a veiy different formation from that of any other 

 known quadruped. Hence, his seemingly bungled conformation is at once 

 accounted lor ; and in lien of Ihe sloth leading a painful life, and entailing 

 a melancholy and miserable existence on its progeny, it is but fair to but- 



