APPENDIX A 315 



III. Description of Additional Discoveries. 

 By A. Smith Woodward.* 



Last February, when presenting to the Zoological Society an account 

 of the skin of a Ground-Sloth discovered in a cavern in Southern 

 Patagonia, Dr. Moreno mentioned that further excavations were being 

 made in the hope of finding other remains of the same animal. The 

 task referred to was undertaken by Dr. Rudolph Hanthal, geologist of the 

 La Plata Museum, who met with complete success. f He not only found 

 another piece of skin, but also various broken bones of more than one 

 individual of a large species of Ground-Sloth in a remarkably fresh state 

 of preservation. Moreover, he discovered teeth of an extinct horse and 

 portions of limb-bones of a large feline carnivore, in association with 

 these remains ; he likewise met with traces of fire, which clearly occurred 

 in the same deposits as the so-called Neomylodon. All these remains 

 were found beneath the dry earth on the floor of an enormous chamber 

 which seemed to have been artificially enclosed by rude walls. In one 

 spot they were scattered through a thick deposit of excrement of some 

 gigantic herbivore, evidently the Ground-Sloth itself; in another spot 

 they were associated with an extensive accumulation of cut hay. Dr. 

 Hauthal and his colleagues, indeed, concluded that the cavern was an 

 old corral in which the Ground-Sloths had been kept and fed by man. 



As the result of these explorations, Dr. Moreno has now the gratifica- 

 tion of exhibiting to the Society complete proof that the piece of skin 

 described on the former occasion belongs to a genuine Pampean Ground- 

 Sloth, not Mylodon itself, but a very closely related genus Grypotheriuni, 

 of which skulls are already known from Pampean deposits in the Province 

 of Buenos Aires.J The collection which we now have the privilege of 

 examining distinctly supports his contention that the large quadruped in 

 question belongs to an extinct fauna, though contemporary with man. 



* " On some Remains of Grypotherium (Neomylodon) listai and associated Mammals 

 from a Cavern near Consuelo Cove, Last Hope Inlet, Patagonia.'' Proc. Zool. Soc, 

 igoo, pp. 64-79, pis. v.-ix. 



t R. Hauthal, S. Roth, and R. Lehmann-Nitsche, " El Mamifero Misterioso de la 

 Patagonia, Grypotherium domesticum," Revista Mus. La Plata, vol. ix. pp. 409-474, 

 pis. i.-v. (1899).— F. P. Moreno, " Note on the Discovery of Miolania and of Glossothermm 

 {Neomylodon) in Patagonia," Geol. Mag. [4] vol. vi. pp. 385-388 (1899). 



I J. Reinhardt, " Beskrivelse af Hovedskallen af et Ksempedovendyr, Grypotherium 

 darwinii, fra La Plata-Landenes plejstocene Dannelser," K. Dansk. Vidensk. Selsk. 

 Skr. [5] vol. xii. (1879), pp. 353-380, pis. i. ii.— H. Burmeister, "Atlas de la Description 

 physique de la Rdpublique Argentine," sect. ii. (1881), p. 1 19, woodc. {Mylodon darwinii).— 

 R. Lydekker, " The Extinct Edentates of Argentina," Anales Mus. La Plata— Paleont. 

 Argentina, vol. iii. pt. 2 (1894), p. 85, pi. liv. 



