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Year after year, however, passed away without bringing with it the requisite liberty 

 from official duties for a visit to Madrid. I availed myself of the rare opportunities 

 afforded by journeys of scientific friends to that city to endeavour to obtain informa- 

 tion on some of the discrepant or doubtful points, and more especially relative to 

 the exact number of teeth or sockets of teeth in the skull ; but usually without any 

 satisfactory result, owing chiefly to the difficulty which the mode of preserving the 

 famous skeleton presents to any close inspection. Dr. Daubeny, the accomplished 

 Professor of Botany at Oxford, in reply to one of my requests, wrote to me from 

 Madrid : — " I have examined the Megatherium and can discern only four teeth in 

 either jaw, which are all perfect and double, but whether or not there be the rudiment 

 of a tooth behind cannot be distinctly ascertained, unless the glass case which covers 

 the specimen be removed ; for there is no door or any way of getting close to the 

 skeleton. I should advise a memorial to be drawn up stating the reasons for wishing 

 the point to be determined, in which case, perhaps, the authorities might consent to 

 allow a pane of glass to be removed." 



Fortunately the necessity of the endeavour to overcome these obstacles was in great 

 measure obviated by the arrival in 1845, in this country, of a very important and 

 remarkable accession of remains of the Megatherium, discovered in 1837, near 

 Luxan, Buenos Ayres, which, with other fossils of large extinct South American 

 animals, were purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum. This collection 

 included an entire cranium and lower jaw of the Megatherium ; all the vertebrae 

 of the tail ; complete series of the bones of both fore- and hind-feet : — in short, parts 

 which, in combination with those previously deposited in the Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, by Sir Woodbine Parish and Mr. Darwin, completed the skele- 

 ton of the animal, including the hyoid and sesamoid bones, which are too often want- 

 ing in the skeletons of our recent and common quadrupeds. 



Accurate plaster casts of the huge pelvis and most of the other bones of the Mega- 

 therium in the College Museum had been prepared at the expense of the College and 

 presented to the British Museum : and, after an examination and comparison of the 

 whole series of the remains of the Megatherium in both collections, and a consulta- 

 tion with the ingenious articulator of the Mylodon, Mr. Flower, I suggested to 

 the able keeper of the Mineralogical Department in the British Museum, Charles 

 Konig, K.H., F.R.S., the advantage which would arise, if similar plaster casts should 

 be taken of all the other bones of the skeleton, and if such casts, coloured to match 

 the original bones, should be mounted ; the originals being preserved separate, for 

 the greater facility of their comparison and for the advantage of examining their 

 articular surfaces. 



The Trustees of the British Museum having taken the proposition under mature 

 consideration, the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons having liberally 

 sanctioned the moulding of all the requisite bones in their Museum, and my own con- 

 sent to superintend the co-adjustment and attitude of the skeleton having been given, 



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