372 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



the case that the fore extremities were exceedingly 

 powerful, hut in a different way, admitting of free 

 motion, and provided with large and prominent claws, 

 so that they were well adapted for grasping the trunk 

 or the larger branches of a tree, while the forces con- 

 centrated upon them from the broad posterior basis 

 are such as could well assist in the act of wrenching 

 off a branch, or even, if need were, uprooting a tree. 



There is, indeed, no other reasonable conclusion to 

 be drawn from the consideration of the framework of 

 these gigantic quadrupeds. Their massive proportions 

 cannot but arrest the attention of even the most indif- 

 ferent beholder, and such proportions seem to imply 

 powers and actions as peculiar to the living animal, 

 as are these modifications to the framework of the 

 body handed down to us. 



The enormous pelvis of the Megatherium proclaims 

 itself the centre, whence muscular masses of unwonted 

 force diverged to act upon the trunk, the tail, and the 

 hind legs ; but, in order that it should possess sta- 

 bility and resistance equivalent to the due effect of 

 the forces acting from it, it required to be bound 

 down and supported by members of corresponding 

 strength. 



'We find, accordingly, a thigh-bone, which, though 

 longer than the shoulder-bone, is half as broad as it 

 is long, and is provided with bony crests, giving un- 

 equivocal evidence of the magnitude and power of the 

 muscles once attached to and working from them. 



This thigh-bone, placed vertically, rested on leg 

 bones of corresponding magnitude, and on a foot 

 which in all its proportions must have served as a fit 

 basis for the leg. The foot was of great length 



