EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 381 



half-gnawed stumps of trees, an important clue to the identity of an animal 

 which, unlike others of its species, did not climb the branches, but simply 

 razed them to the ground by means of its prodigious strength. Professor 

 Moreno believes that this fragment of skin belongs to the real Mylodon t 

 and that it owes its present state of preservation to certain contributory 

 circumstances which on other occasions have destroyed the potency of the 

 effacing hand of time and weather ! The skin has been exhibited before 

 the' Royal and Zoological Societies, where it had to pass under the review 

 of some of the leading zoological and geological experts of the day. 



" On the other hand, Dr. Ameghino claims to have procured some of 

 the skin from natives, who assured him that they shot the animal, and that 

 owing to the bony lumps it had to be literally hacked from off the carcase. 

 He regards it as a living representative of the Gravigrades of Argentina, 

 and has given it the name of Neo-Mylodon listai. Be that, however, as it 

 may, the animal in question is — or should be — about the size of a Bear, 

 and in many quarters the possibility that it may yet be found alive is hope- 

 fully regarded. If it is alive, it is scarcely possible that it will elude for 

 long the vigilauce of so keen and practised a big-game hunter as young 

 Mr. Cavendish, whose name has been given to a new species of Antelope 

 which he recently discovered on his travels in Africa. Up to the present 

 the Mylodon has only been found in a fossilized state, its remains having 

 been brought to light in a pleistocene fluviatile deposit not far from the 

 city of Buenos Ay res nearly sixty years ago. There is a complete skeleton, 

 but nothing more substantial, in the Natural History Museum at South 

 Kensington, and there is an almost entire one in the Hunterian Museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons. As a consequence, the efforts of those 

 gentlemen who are endeavouring to establish its reality in the flesh are 

 being watched with the closest interest. 



" As to the ordinary Sloth, it has been thought by many that owing to 

 the imperfect nature of its formation its existence must be a positive 

 burden to itself; but this is far from being the case, as those know who 

 have seen the agility which it displays in its native state in the forests of 

 America, despite the unequal length of its arms and legs. True, it is 

 absolutely helpless on terra Jirma — in fact, it can neither walk nor stand — 

 but even that is excusable in the case of an animal that not only moves but 

 also rests, and even sleeps, in a state of suspension ! 



" Since the above was written news has reached England from Pata- 

 gonia that several huge bones, entire skulls, powerful claws, and a complete 

 hide of the animal have been discovered deep down in a cave by Dr. R. 

 Hauthal, of the La Plata Museum, who had also joined the ranks of the 

 pursuers." — F. P. S. 



