was open towards the abdomen, the pubis being absent, without any indication of its 

 having ever existed*, concludes that the animal was intermediate, as to form, between 

 the Cape Anteater (Orycteropus) and the Great Anteater of America (Myrmecophaga 

 jubata). But he adds, that M. Cuvier, from an examination of the engravings of the 

 skeleton, had recognized that the species was much more nearly allied to the Sloths 

 than to the Anteaters. 



M. Abildgaard, a professor at Copenhagen, having had the opportunity of study- 

 ing the skeleton of the Megatherium at Madrid in 1793, published a short notice of 

 it in Danish, illustrated by a rude figure of the skull and of the hind limbs, and 

 referred the species to the Bruta of Linnaeus, an order afterwards modified to form 

 the Edentds of Cuvier: this notice, though published the year after Cuvier's Report, 

 appears to have been independent of it, and the conclusions to be the result of the 

 author's own observations and reflections. It is, therefore, to be regarded as an 

 additional testimony to the true affinities of the species. 



Cuvier's comments on the figures in the engravings for Garriga's memoir are 

 accompanied by reduced copies of them, given in the above-cited volume of the 

 ' Annales du Museum,' and afterwards in the fourth volume of the first edition of the 

 ' Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles,' 4to, 1812. In both works Cuvier sums up 

 his conclusions as to the habits and food of the Megatherium, as follows: — "Its 

 teeth prove that it lived on vegetables, and its robust fore-feet armed with sharp 

 claws, make us believe that it was principally their roots which it attacked. Its 

 magnitude and its talons must have given it sufficient means of defence. It was not 

 of swift course, nor was this requisite, the animal needing neither to pursue nor to 

 escape-f-." 



In the year 1821 Drs. Pander and D'Alton published their beautiful Monograph 

 on the Megatherium, the result of personal examination and depiction of the then 

 unique skeleton at Madrid ; they represent the bones more artistically and in more 

 natural juxtaposition than in the plates of Bru's memoir, but the subject being the 

 same, the same deficiencies, to be presently specified, were unavoidable. 



As the accomplished and learned authors of the German work reasoned, like 

 Abildgaard, from actual inspection of the fossil skeleton, their conclusions as to the 

 nature, affinities and habits of the animal to which it belonged merit a respectful 

 consideration. In it they recognize, with Cuvier, all the important points of resem- 



* " Son bassin est compost; des os sacrum, ileum et ischium, mais il n'y a point de pubis ni d'indication qu'il 

 ait existe". Ce bassin est ouvert du cot6 de l'abdomen." — p. 97. It will be shown in this memoir that the sup- 

 posed want of pubic bones was due to accidental mutilation of the pelvis of the skeleton at Madrid : the true 

 profile of the pelvis is given at ei, 63, 04, Plate I. 



+ •* Ses dents prouvent qu'il vivoit de vegtitaux, et ses pieds de devant, robustes et armees d'ongles tranchans, 

 nous fait croire que c'Gtoit principalement leurs racines qu'il attaquoit. Sa grandeur et ses griffes devoient lui 

 fournir assez de moyens de defense. II n'e"toit pas prompt a la course, mais cela ne lui etoit pas necessaire, 

 n'ayant besoin ni de poursuivre ni de fuir." Tom. cit. ' Sur le Megatherium,' p. 29. See also the posthumous 

 edition of the ' Ossemens Fossiles,' 8vo, 1836, torn. viii. p. 363. 



