Quadrupeds. 285 



as the hand, which is of considerable breadth. Next to moles, the best diggers or bur- 

 rowers are found in the order to which Megalonyx belongs, especially in the armadillo 

 family ; but the different species of that genus are not all equally well provided in this 

 respect. The best diggers are the cabassous, among which we again recognize the 

 same characters as in the moles; a broad hand, all the digits provided with claws, very 

 broad and nearly equal. In the Euphractus the hand is somewhat smaller, as are also 

 the claws, although their number remains undiminished ; consequently, the species of 

 this family cannot compete with the former as burrowers. In the true armadilloes the 

 number of digits provided with claws is reduced to four ; and they are so inferior to the 

 first described, in the faculty of digging, as to avail themselves, for the most part, of 

 the burrows the others have excavated." — Lund, 1. c. p. 159. 



Dr. Lund then compares the hand of the sloth with that of the Me- 

 galonyx, showing that the latter is adapted for climbing rather than 

 burrowing. He describes the hand of the anteaters, showing how well 

 it is adapted for its employ of tearing open the hills of the white ants: 

 he maintains that these animals do not burrow, and hence concludes 

 that the resemblance of the hand of Megalonyx to that of the anteat- 

 ers, by no means goes to prove, as suggested by Cuvier, that it was 

 a burrowing animal. He next considers the enormous strength of 

 the hinder extremities, the prodigious claw of the middle toe, and the 

 unusually powerful tail (which he supposes to have been prehensile) 

 of the extinct animal ; and maintains that all these conditions indi- 

 cate the power of climbing. It seems however to strike the author 

 that creatures of such enormous bulk were scarcely fitted for the trees 

 of the present day, even as we see them, and in the stately forests of 

 Brazil ; and he therefore concludes by clothing this region of mon- 

 sters with a vegetation proportionably gigantic. 



" In truth, what ideas must we form of a scale of creation, where, instead of our 

 squirrels, creatures of the size and bulk of the Rhinoceros and Hippopotamus climbed 

 up trees ! It is very certain that the forests in which these huge monsters gambolled, 

 could not be such as now clothe the Brazilian mountains; but it will be remembered, 

 that in the former communication which I had the honour of submitting to the Soci- 

 ety, I endeavoured to show that the trees we now see in this region, are but the dwarf- 

 ish descendants of those loftier and nobler forests which originally clothed these high- 

 lands ; and we may surely be permitted to suppose that the vegetation of that prim£eval 

 age was on a no less gigantic scale than the animal creation. 



", In the present order of existing nature, all the mammals that are appointed to 

 live in trees belong to the smaller kinds; which seems so essential a condition, that in 

 the families and genera containing climbers, the development of this faculty dimin- 

 ishes in a ratio corresponding to the increase in size of the species. Thus, in the ge- 

 nus Felis, the smaller species live for the most part in trees ; those of an intermediate 

 size hunt their prey on the ground, but climb with more or less activity ; while the 

 largest species of all are entirely deprived of that power. Again, in the family of apes, 

 the existence of the smaller kinds is indissolubly linked with arboreal habits ; while the 



