270 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



vegetable, they do not ruminate. Their intestines are very 

 short, and they have no caecum, which circumstance is a 

 very singular phenomenon in herbivorous animals. There 

 is one common cloaca or passage for the expulsion of urine 

 and faeces. 



These animals are natives of South America. The ex- 

 cessive slowness of locomotion in the Bradypodes has caused 

 these animals to be remarked by most travellers who have 

 surveyed the countries in which they inhabit. This slowness 

 is the result of their peculiar conformation. Their long 

 and weak limbs, their thighs so considerably separated, their 

 toes lumped as it were together, and appearing externally 

 only by their immense claws, which answer little other 

 purpose than that of hooks to fasten on the branches of 

 trees, or to pass from one to another ; all these defects of 

 organization deprive these animals of the faculty of moving 

 with swiftness, and of grasping extraneous objects. The 

 want of naked parts precludes all delicacy in the sense of 

 touch. Their ears, almost divested of all external conch, 

 cannot communicate impressions to the sensorium with that 

 vivacity that such organs would do in a state of greater 

 development. Finally, their motions on the ground are 

 constrained and impeded by the excessive length of the an- 

 terior extremities, which obliges them to rest rather upon 

 the cubitus than the carpus and metacarpus. 



This last character, as the Baron remarks, they have, in 

 common with the Ateles, the Orang-Outang, and the Loris. 

 These animals, too, especially the first and last, are slow in 

 their motions. The Orang certainly possesses sufficient 

 activity in climbing ; but on the ground his movements 

 are heavy and awkward. A remarkable trait of affinity 

 between the Sloths and the Loris, to which some allu- 

 sion has been made before in the present work, was dis- 

 covered by Mr. Carlisle. The arteries of the legs and arms 

 in both these genera form a multitude of ramifications, 



