DESCRIPTION 



OF 



THE SKELETON OF THE MEGATHERIUM. 



^ 1. Historical Introduction. 



JjEFORE commencing the description of the skeleton of the Megatherium, now in 

 London, Plate I., which is the most complete that has yet reached Europe, a brief 

 statement may be premised of the chief steps which have led to the restoration of the 

 species (Megatherium Americanum, Cuvier and Blumenbach) to which it belongs. 



Cuvier, in communicating to the ' Annales du Museum' (t. v. 1804) a translation 

 of the first memoir on this subject — that, viz. by Garriga and Bru, published at 

 Madrid in 1796, — gives all the requisite details respecting the discovery of the skele- 

 ton therein described, and adds his own more important deductions as to its affinities 

 from an examination and comparison of the plates of the Spanish work. 



It appears that proofs of these plates were transmitted in 1795 to the Institute 

 of France, and that Cuvier, having been called upon by the ' Class of Sciences ' at 

 that period to give a report upon them, developed his views of the affinity of the 

 animal to the Sloths and other Edentates*, and proposed for it the name ' Mega- 

 therium-f-.' 



M. Roume, the correspondent of the French Institute to whom that distinguished 

 scientific body were indebted for the proof impressions of Garriga's work, and who 

 had an opportunity of examining the skeleton itself at Madrid (which Cuvier never 

 enjoyed), inserted a brief notice of it in the 'Bulletin de la Soci6t6 Philomathique' 

 of the Republican year IV. (1795); in which, after particularly noticing that the pelvis 



* " Je developpai des-lors l'affinitc de cet animal avec les paresseux et les autres Mentis." — Annales du 

 Museum, t. v. p. 377. 



t fiiyat great, fli/piof beast. 



a2 



