APPENDIX A 



The expedition sent out to Patagonia under my charge by Mr. C. Arthur 

 Pearson owed its origin to the discoveries made in that country by 

 Dr. F. P. Moreno of certain remains of an animal, the Pampean Mylodon 

 •or Giant Ground Sloth, long believed to belong to the category of extinct 

 prehistoric mammals. The marvellous state of preservation of the 

 remains found at Last Hope Inlet seemed to give some ground for 

 the supposition that the animal might possibly have survived to a 

 recent period. Professor Ray Lan tester, the Director of the British 

 Museum of Natural History, in commenting upon the chance of the 

 Mylodon being still alive in some remote and unknown region of Pata- 

 gonia, said : " It is quite possible — I don't want to say more than that — 

 that he still exists in some of the mountainous regions of Patagonia." 

 These words from such an authority carried weight, and the question 

 assumed an importance that made it worth all practicable examination. 

 I have in the following pages put the whole case as clearly and as 

 definitely as lies in my power. 



To begin with, I give the story of Dr. Moreno's discovery as he him- 

 self told it to the Zoological- Society, and the description of the remains 

 by Dr. A. Smith Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S. 



I. Account of the Discovery. By Dr. Moreno. 



In November 1897 I paid a visit to that part of the Patagonian 

 territory which adjoins the Cordillera of the Andes, between the S i st and 

 52nd degrees of South latitude, where certain surveyors, under my 

 direction, were carrying out the preliminary studies connected with the 

 boundary-line between Chile and Argentina ; and in the course of this 

 •expedition I reached Consuelo Cove, which lies in Last Hope Inlet. In 

 that spot, hung up on a tree, I found a piece of a dried skin, which attracted 

 my attention most strangely, as I could not determine to what class of 

 Mammalia it could belong, more especially because of the resemblance of 

 the small incrusted bones it contained to those of the Pampean Mylodon. 



