has been led to the inference that they climbed trees, like the Sloths of the 

 present day, in order to feed upon the leaves*. 



* It is due to the laborious and ingenious naturalist above cited to give this somewhat startling 

 conclusion in his own words, with the following translation of which 1 have been favoured by the 

 Rev. W. Bilton, M.A. : — " Thus in every one of the points of comparison we have instituted between 

 burrowers and climbers, we have seen that the Megalonyx constantly differs from the former, and 

 resembles the latter : but the point to which I last alluded, the inversion of the hind-foot, I consider 

 to be quite decisive. There is one other character ia its organization, which is not quite without 

 weight in reference to our present inquiry, I mean its unusually powerful tail. Now, it is certainly 

 true, that many animals which are not cUmbers have a powerful tail, as for instance. Armadillos, &c., 

 while others that climb will have none, as Sloths, and some Apes ; but when we find a remarkably 

 powerful tail attached to an animal, that, according to all probability, was a climber, we are led to 

 infer that this organ must have served for that purpose, in other words, that the Megalonyx was fur- 

 nished with a prehensile tail. 



" How far the Megatherium is to be considered in the same light as the Megalonyx, cannot be decided 

 without an accurate and scientific examination of the skeleton at Madrid. Pander and D' Alton do 

 not mention any distortion of the hind-foot, neither does their figure exhibit any. It is, nevertheless, 

 quite possible that such may exist, but that it is disguised by the faulty manner in which the skeleton is 

 put up. It occurs to me as very unlikely, that two animals which agree so closely in all other striking 

 particulars of their organization, should diflfer so much in one of the most important. The Megathe- 

 rium has been proved by later discoveries to possess the same powerful tail as the Megalonyx ; and as 

 it besides corresponds with the latter entirely in the conformation of its extremities, the same diffi- 

 culties present themselves against the supposition of its having been a burrower. But if the Mega- 

 therium was really a climber, it must have had still more occasion (on account of its greater size) for 

 that peculiar arrangement of the hind-feet, which we have described in the Megalonyx. I am aware 

 that most people, from the immense bulk and clumsy make of these animals, will object to the view I 

 have ventured to give of their habits. I confess the weight of this objection, which no one can feel 

 more than I do. Indeed, it had the effect of long preventing me from coming to what appeared so 

 improbable a conclusion, and impelled me to a detailed and wearisome examination of all the relations 

 and circumstances that could bear upon the subject, to discover, if possible, some other solution of the 

 phenomena which the osteology of the Megalonyx presents. This is not the place to detail all my in- 

 vestigations ; but at least I may say this, that the more points of view in which I considered the sub- 

 ject, the more irresistibly was I led to the conclusion I have ventured to express ; although no one 

 confesses more readily than I do, how much, at the first glance, it appears to be at variance with 

 nature. 



" In truth, what ideas must we form of a scale of creation, where, instead of our squirrels, creatures 

 of the size and bulk of the Rhinoceros and Hippopotamus climbed up trees ! It is very certain that 

 the forests in which these huge monsters gambolled, could not be such as now clothe the Brazilian 

 mountains ; but it will be remembered, that in the former communication which I had the honour of 

 submitting to the Society, I endeavoured to show, that the trees we now see in this region are but 

 the dwarfish descendants of those loftier and nobler forests which originally covered these Highlands ; 



B 



