102 MAMMALIA. 



Finally, there remains an animal perhaps nearly allied to the Cavias, and 

 possibly more so to the Lagomys or the Rats, which we are unable to dis- 

 pose of, on account of our ignorance of its teeth; I mean the Chinchilla, 

 thousands of whose skins are to be had, but of which we have never yet 

 been able to procure the entire body. It is about the size of a small Rabbit; 

 is covered with long, close and fine hair, the softest that is known among 

 common furs. This quadruped inhabits the mountains of South America. 



ORDER VI. 

 EDENTATA. 



The Edentata, or quadrupeds without front teeth, will form our 

 last order of unguiculated animals. Although united by a character 

 purely negative, they have, nevertheless, some positive mutual re- 

 lations, and particularly large nails, which embrace the extremities 

 of the toes, approaching more or less to the nature of hoofs: a slow- 

 ness, a want of agility, obviously arising from the peculiar organi- 

 zation of their limbs. There are, however, certain intervals in these 

 relations, which render it necessary to divide the order into three 

 tribes. The first of these is the 



TAHDIGRADA. 



They have a short face. Their name originates from their ex- 

 cessive slowness, the consequence of a construction truly heteroc- 

 lite, in which nature seems to have amused herself by producing 

 something imperfect and grotesque. The only genus now in exis- 

 tence is 



BRADYPUS, Lin. 



The Sloths have cylindrical molars, and sharp canini longerthan those molars, 

 two mammae on the breast, and fingers 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 then- 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 organization of the extremities is added another, 

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



