animal matter ; but after having been restored in ?ome measure to their original 

 tenacity, the parts of the carapace were reunited, the skeleton was articulated, 

 and both are now placed in the Museum. 



In receiving these rare and instructive evidences of the ancient zoology of 

 South America, the College was expressly assured, by their discoverer, that the 

 carapace and the skeleton belonged to two different animals. Already, indeed, 

 the fossils discovered by Mr. Darwin in Patagonia and La Plata* and those by 

 Dr. Lund, the Danish naturaUst, in Brazilf, had indicated that several species 

 of large quadrupeds had become extinct in South America. But independently 

 of these evidences, the complete state of the skeleton about to be described, 

 establishes its essential relations to a family of the order Bruta of Linnaeus 

 {Edentata, Cuv.), distinct from the Armadillos, and throws much valuable light 

 on the organization and affinities of other less known and more gigantic quadru- 

 peds, its congeners and contemporaries in the ancient transatlantic world, and 

 now alike removed from the scene of animated existence. 



A few words on these extinct quadrupeds, and on the existing species of the 

 Edentate order to which they are aUied, will serve to show the peculiar interest 

 and importance of the present accession to the Osteological Department of the 

 Museum. 



Of the three genera of living Edentata, which are peculiar to South America, 

 viz. Bradypus (Sloth), Dasypus (Armadillo), and Myrmecophaga (Ant-eater), the 

 last includes the largest species. The Great Ant-eater {Myrmecophaga jubata) 

 equals in length, though not in height, a Newfoundland dog: the gigantic Arma- 

 dillo t may attain to two-thirds of that bulk, but most of the species are of much 

 smaller dimensions : the largest of the Sloths does not exceed two feet from the 

 muzzle to the vent, but the anterior extremities are of disproportionate length. 



The fossil quadruped, whose relations to the slow-paced Bradypi Cuvier first 

 scientifically determined, thus proving that their pecuhar type of organization 

 had once been represented, on a gigantic scale, in the primgeval forests of South 



* These fossils were presented to the Royal College of Surgeons in 18.36, and have been described 

 in the Natural History of the Voyage of the Beagle, ' Fossil Mammalia," Parts I. to IV., 4to, 1838-40. 



t Comptes Rendus des Seances de I'Academie des Sciences, 1839, p. 570. 



J This existing species was called by Cuvier Dasypus gigas, before the remains of the ancient Glyp- 

 todons had been determined. 



