406 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



13. On saying this, I took a long stick which was lying 

 there, held it for him to hook on, and then conveyed him 

 to a high and stately mora. He ascended with wonderful 

 rapidity, and in about a minute he was almost at the ton of 

 the tree, lie now went off in a side direction and caught 

 hold of the branch of a neighboring tree ; he then pro- 

 ceeded toward the heart of the forest. I stood looking on, 

 lost in amazement at his singular mode of progress. I fol- 

 lowed him with my eye till the intervening branches closed 

 in betwixt us ; and then I lost sight for ever of the two-toed 

 sloth. I was going to add that I never saw a sloth take to 

 his heels in such earnest ; but the expression will not do, for 

 the sloth has no heels. That which naturalists have ad- 

 vanced of his being so tenacious of life is perfectly true. I 

 saw the heart of one beat for half an hour after it was taken 

 out of the body. 



14. So much for this harmless, unoffending animal. He 

 holds a conspicuous place in the catalogue of the animals of 

 the New World. Though naturalists have made no men- 

 tion of what follows, still it is not less true on that account. 

 The sloth is the only quadruped known which spends its 

 whole life from the branch of a tree suspended by its feet. 

 I have paid uncommon attention to him in his native 

 haunts. The monkey and squirrel will seize a branch with 

 their forefeet, and pull themselves up, and rest or run 

 upon it ; but the sloth, after seizing it, still remains sus- 

 pended, and, suspended, moves along under the branch till 

 lie can lay hold of another. Whenever I have seen him in 

 his native woods, whether at rest or asleep, or on his 

 travels, I have always observed that he was suspended from 

 the branch of a tree. When his form and anatomy are at- 

 tentively considered, it will appear evident that the sloth 

 can not be at ease in any situation where his body is higher 

 or above his feet. 



Charles Waterton. 



