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zation of the hinder limbs that Professor Owen mainly appeals to 

 ascertain the functions of the forefeet and the general habits of the 

 Mylodon. 



Arguing that the enormous pelvis must have been the centre 

 whence muscular masses of unwonted force diverged to act 

 upon the trunk, tail and hind-legs, the latter, it is supposed, formed 

 with the tail a tripod on which the animal sat. Professor Owen 

 supposes that the animal first cleared away the earth from the roots 

 with its digging instruments, and that then seated on its hinder 

 extremities, which with the tail are conjectured to have formed a 

 tripod, and aided by the extraordinary long heel as with a lever, it 

 grasped the trunk of the tree with its forelegs. Heaving to and 

 fro the stateliest trees of primaeval forests, and wrenching them 

 from their hold, he at length prostrated them by his side, and 

 then regaled himself for several days on their choicest leaves and 

 branches, which till then had been far beyond reach. After show- 

 ing that from the natural inversion of the hind-feet the Mylodon ap- 

 proached to the scansorial animals, and thence inferring that it might 

 have had climbing powers necessarily much limited by the other 

 parts of its frame. Professor Ovi'en states, that the inversion of the 

 soles of the feet is least conspicuous in the Megatherium, whose 

 bulk and strength would be adequate to the prostration of trees too 

 large for the efforts of the Mylodon, Megalonyx and Scelidotherium. 

 The Megatherium, in short, was the mighty tree-drawer, and had 

 therefore no need of the adventitious aid of any climbing appa- 

 ratus. Allow me to add, that, amongst other reasonings, those 

 which lead to conclusions that one class of megatherioid animals 

 was furnished with a hairy coating (like the Mylodoa), whilst 

 another, like the great Megatherium, was devoid of it, as evi- 

 denced by slight modifications of the bony structure of the hind- 

 feet, appear to me to be not the least original and interesting. 



Wholly incapable, as I am, to do justice to this masterly inquiry 

 by the necessarily brief allusion which is imposed upon me by the 

 nature of this discourse, I shall best execute my task in quoting 

 the words with which Professor Owen sums up his reasoning. 



" On the Newtonian rule, therefore, this theory has the best claim 

 to acceptance ; it is, moreover, strictly in accordance with, as it has 

 been suggested by, the ascertained anatomy of the very remarkable 

 extinct animals, whose business in a former world it professes to 

 explain. And the results of the foregoing examination, comparisons 

 and reasonings on the fossils proposed to be described, may be 

 summed up as follows. All the characteristics which exist in the 

 skeleton of the Mylodon and Megatherium, conduce and concur to 

 the production of the forces requisite for uprooting and prostrating 

 trees ; of which characteristics, if any one were loanting, the effect 

 could not he produced: this, therefore, and no other mode of 

 obtaining food, is the condition of the sum of such character- 

 istics, and of the concourse of so great forces in one and the same 

 animal." 



This, Gentlemen, is the true Cuvierian style, in which, as in num- 



