82 Mr. Owen on the Glyptodon clavipes. 



moire," &c. loc. cit. p. 191. The admeasurement which he fortunately gives of 

 the femur proves that if that bone really belonged to the Megatherium it must 

 have been part of a very young animal ; for whereas the femur of the Megatherium 

 is sixteen inches in width, that of the fossil in question has at the utmost only 

 half that width. Without laying much stress on the accuracy of Don Larranaga's 

 comparison of his fossil femur with that of the existing Armadillos, I may observe 

 that the femur of an Armadillo presents a striking character, in the third trochanter, 

 likely to catch the eye of the most superficial observer ; and that if the fossil femur 

 in question did actually present this character, it would be decisive against its 

 identity with that of the Megatherium. 



Cuvier, however, makes no comment on these discrepancies, but merely observes 

 that the Cure's letter announces or indicates that the Megatherium Iiad pushed its 

 analogies with the Armadillos so far, as to be covered like them with a scaly cuirass. 



The next observations bearing upon the present question occur in Prof. Weiss 's 

 Geological memoir on the Provinces of S. Pedro do Sul and the Banda Oriental*, 

 where certain fossils, collected by the Prussian traveller Sellow in the state of 

 Monte Video, are described. 



One of these fossils is the fractured distal end of the femur of the Megatherium ; 

 it had been discovered by the Indians, or at least made use of by them in cooking 

 their food, in the neighbourhood of the Queguay, one of the tributaries of the 

 Uruguay, and was found by Sellow near one of their deserted encampments : the 

 fragment belongs to the right femur ; the outer condyle is knocked off, and the 

 bone is said to be blackened by fire. In short, it had been put to precisely the 

 same use as that to which the vertebrse of Sir Woodbine Parish's Megatherium were 

 applied by the Peons who discovered that skeleton. No mention is made of any 

 armour or portions of armour having been discovered associated with or near to 

 this fragment ; but in the ford of the Queguay a Spanish soldier found a fossil, 

 which passed into the hands of the Surgeon major, Francisco Meves, and by him 

 was given to Sellow. This fossil is figured in PI. IV. of Professor Weiss's memoir ; 

 he conjectures that it may have formed part of the tail-armour of the Megatherium, 

 but allows that it is a fossil of very dubious character. It is unquestionably a 

 portion of the dermal bony armour of some loricated animal. 



Sellow also collected, in the neighbourhood of the Queguay, portions of a fossil 

 carapace, undoubtedly belonging to a large Tortoise, and to which the name of 

 Testudo Sellowii is given by Weiss f. 



The portions of tesselated bony armour, figured by Professor Weiss, PL I. and 

 II., and described at p. 277 of his Memoir, were obtained by Sellow on the 

 Arapeychico, in the province of Monte Video ; but no bones, either of the Mega- 



* Abhandlungen der Kon. Acad, der Wissenschaften zu Berlin ; 1827. t Loc. cit. p. 286, PI. V. 



