1904.] Allen, Mammals from Santa Maria, Colombia. 419 



nal characters (from the mounted specimen) , from which and 

 the skull it evidently belongs to the B. tridactylus group. 



"SLOTH (called perico lijero in sarcastic reference to its 

 movements) . Extremely rare near Santa Marta, though 

 sometimes found on the low lands near the river Manzanares ; 

 its low cry, said to resemble the wailing of an infant, is occa- 

 sionally heard at night. Southward, beyond Rio Frio and in 

 swampy forest adjoining the Magdalena flood plains, it is said 

 to be more common; it does not occur in the mountains. 

 Just before leaving Santa Marta we purchased a living speci- 

 men which had been brought from Rio Frio ; we succeeded in 

 carrying this to Pittsburgh, where it soon died. The skin 

 and skeleton are now in the Carnegie Museum in that city. 

 While living the animal would eat little except mangoes and 

 bananas, which it seemed to like; it spent most of the time 

 clinging to the back of a chair or to slats on its box; on the 

 ground it could move only by stretching out one long fore-leg, 

 hooking an object with its claw, and drawing its body up. 

 Yet sloths sometimes descend to the ground in passing from 

 tree to tree ; I once found one between two trees in the forest 

 near Santarem. 



"The natural position of a sloth while feeding is either 

 reversed, hanging from a branch by its claws, or clinging to a 

 perpendicular branch with its head upward ; in descending it 

 goes backward. Its movements are very leisurely, but by 

 no means as slow as they have been described. 



"Sloths are very tenacious of life; I have known one to be 

 literally riddled with seven or eight charges of shot before it 

 loosened its hold and fell." - H. H. S. 



6. Myrmecophaga tridactyla (Linn.}. Not represented 

 by specimens. A single example was obtained at Dibulla by 

 Mr. Brown (Bangs, Proc. N. Engl. Zool. Club, I, p. 89). Fol- 

 lowing are Mr. Smith's notes on its occurrence in the district. 



" GREAT ANTEATER. This animal is extremely rare in the 

 Santa Marta mountains, though occasionally reported; the 

 only one we heard of during our stay was seen by my son and 

 two porters as they were passing on a mountain pass near 

 Valparaiso, at an elevation of about 5000 feet; they had no 



