Mr. Owen on the Glyptodon clavipes. 97 



tremely close resemblance in point of structure will be manifest to whoever com- 

 pares Plates I. and II. of Prof. Weiss's Memoir with PI. XLVI. of Mr. Cliffs paper : 

 the polygonal pieces in the former are, however, generally a little smaller than 

 those figured by Mr. Clift ; yet some portions in Prof. Weiss's figures, as PI. I. fig. 3, 

 t. 1, fully equal in size the largest polygons in the Enghsh specimens, and the 

 whole of his elaborate description tends to prove that the portions of armour dis- 

 covered by Sellow and Sir Woodbine Parish belong to the same species of extinct 

 animal. If, however, there were no other grounds for this opinion than the com- 

 parison of the coat of mail, we could not arrive at a perfectly satisfactory conclu- 

 sion in consequence of the near resemblance which some species of Armadillo 

 present in the structure of their tesselated armour; fortunately, however, the parts 

 of the skeleton transmitted along with the armour by both Sellow and Sir Wood- 

 bine Parish, afford the means of arriving at positive certainty on this point. The 

 radius and a few bones of the hind-foot of Sellow's specimen are sufficiently 

 perfect, and their delineations by the highly-esteemed pencil of Prof. D 'Alton are 

 sufficiently characteristic and exact, to show them to be identical in form and 

 structure with the corresponding bones of the Glyptodon, here described. Sellow's 

 specimen was, however, as we have seen, a younger individual than Sir Wood- 

 bine Parish's, the epiphyses of the radius not being united, and the bone about 

 one-fifth smaller. All the other bones of Sellow's specimen, which are sufficiently 

 perfect to be compared with Sir Woodbine Parish's, show a corresponding infe- 

 riority of size, together with the other indications that the animal had perished 

 ere it had attained its full growth. 



Thus, then, we obtain proof that the only portions of tesselated armour trans- 

 mitted to Europe, with the conditions requisite for determining the species to which 

 they belonged, testify to their having formed part of the structure of an edentate 

 animal, widely different from, and much smaller than, the Megatherium. 



Does it therefore necessarily follow, it may then be asked, that the Megatherium 

 was not in like manner covered with a bony coat of armour ? Undoubtedly it does 

 not. But the proof or the probability that it was so armed, must at present repose 

 on arguments afforded either by modifications of the skeleton analogous to those 

 which in the Armadillos have relation to their osseous coat of mail, or by other 

 peculiarities indicative of a similar relation. 



Our distinguished President, Dr. Buckland*, has called attention to the broad 

 and rough flattened surface of a part of the crest of the widely-expanded ilium, to 

 the breadth of the summit of the spines of many of the vertebrae, and also of the 

 superior convex bend or angle of certain ribs, as affording " evidence of pressure 



* Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. pp. 160 and 161. 

 VOL. VI. SECOND SERIES. O 



