bones and the two inner toes ; but he quotes Dr. Pander's suspicion that some 

 small bones may be missing from this side of the foot. Only three toes thus 

 appear to be developed, corresponding with the third, fourth, and fifth of other 

 quadrupeds ; of these only one supports a claw, which is of immense size, and 

 each of the remaining toes has only two phalanges, and has no claw, in the 

 Madrid skeleton. Cuvier concludes his description by quoting a letter received 

 by M. Auguste Saint-Hilaire from a scientific Brazilian, which announces that 

 the Megatherium had pushed its analogies to the Armadillos so far as to be 

 covered, like them, with a tesselated cuirass*. 



After mature deliberation on the skeleton of the Megatherium, Cuvier con- 

 ceives himself permitted to form the following conjectures as to the nature and 

 habits of the animal to which it belonged : — " 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 escapef." 



In these conclusions, the editor of the posthumous edition of the ' Ossemens 

 Fossiles ' coincides, but appends a warning against too hastily attributing to the 

 Megatherium the fragments of the gigantic bony armour that had been found in 

 the same formations of South America, suggested by his recognition of the 

 remains of the foot of a great Armadillo among the fossils transmitted to 

 England by Sir Woodbine Parish |. 



In a later memoir by Professor Weiss §, on fragments of a gigantic osseous 

 carapace discovered by the Prussian traveller Sellow, in the province of Monte 

 Video, and attributed by the Professor to the Megatherium, this warning seems 

 to have been disregarded. 



* Loc. cit. p 367. See note ^, p. 5 of the present Memoir. 



t " L'inspection d'un squelette aussi complet et aussi heureusement conserve nous permet de former 

 des conjectures assez piausibles sur la nature de I'animal auquel il a appartenu. Ses dents prouvent 

 qu'il vivait de vegetaux, et ses pieds de devant, robustes et armes d'ongles tranchans, nous font croire 

 que c'Staient pnncipalement leurs racines qu'il attaquait. Sa grandeur et ses griffes devaient lui 

 foumir assez de moyens de defense. II n'etait pas prompt a la course, mais cela ne lui etait pas ne- 

 ces?aire, n'ayant besoin ni de poursuivre ni de fuir." — Loc. cit. p. 363. 



X Loc. cit. p. 368. 



§ Abhandlungen der Kon. Acad, der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1827. 



