ADVENTURES AND INCIDENTS. 401 



sweet, and intermitting warble which gives such a melan- 

 choly charm to a still winter's day. 



Charles Edward Stuart. 



THE SLOTH. 



1. This singular animal is destined by nature to bo pro- 

 duced, to live, and to die in the trees ; and, to do justice 

 to him, naturalists must examine him in this upper ele- 

 ment. He is a scarce and solitary animal, and, being good 

 food, he is never allowed to escape. He inhabits remote 

 and gloomy forests, where snakes take up their abode, and 

 where cruelly stinging ants and scorpions, and swamps, 

 and innumerable thorny shrubs and bushes, obstruct the 

 steps of civilized man. Were you to draw your own con- 

 clusions from the descriptions which have been given of 

 the sloth, you would probably suspect that no naturalist 

 has actually gone into the wilds with the fixed determina- 

 tion to find him out, and examine his haunts, and see 

 whether nature has committed any blunder in the forma- 

 tion of this extraordinary creature, which appears to us so 

 forlorn and miserable, so ill put together, and so totally 

 unfit to enjoy the blessings which have been so bountifully 

 given to the rest of animated nature ; for he has no soles 

 to his feet, and he is evidently ill at ease when he tries to 

 move on the ground, and it is then that he looks up in 

 your face with a countenance that says, "Have pity on 

 me, for I am in pain and sorrow." 



2. However, we are now in his own domain. Man but 

 little frequents these thick and noble forests, which extend 

 far and wide on every side of us. This, then, is the proper 

 place to go in quest of the sloth. We will first take a 

 near view of him. By obtaining a knowledge of his anato- 

 my, we shall be enabled to account for his movements 



