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106 



ZOOLOGY OF THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 



1 



not, as in the Sloths, to carry the animal to the food, but to bring the food within 

 the reach of the animal, by uprooting the trees on which it grew. 



In the remains of the Megatherium we have evidence of the frame-work of a 

 quadruped equal to the task of undermining and hawling down the largest mem- 

 bers of a tropical forest. In the latter operation it is obvious that the immediate 

 application of the anterior extremities to the trunk of the tree would demand a 

 corresponding fulcrum, to be effectual, and it is the necessity for an adequate 

 basis of support and resistance to such an application of the fore-extremities 

 hich gives the explanation to the anomalous development of the pelvis, tail, and 



hinder extremities in the Megatherioid quadrupeds. No wonder, therefore, that 

 their type of structure is so peculiar ; for where shall we now find quadrupeds 

 equal, like them, to the habitual task of uprooting trees for food ? 



DESCRIPTION OF FRAGMENTS OF BONES, AND OF OSSEOUS TESSELATED DERMAL 



COVERING OF LARGE EDENTATA. 



It is now determined that there once existed in South America, besides the Me- 

 gatherium, the Megalonyx, and the allied genera described in the preceding pages 

 of the present work, gigantic species of the order Bruta belonging to the Arma- 

 dillo family, and defended, like the small existing representatives of that family, 

 by a tesselated bony dermal covering. The largest known species of these 

 extinct Basypodidce is the Glyptodon clavipes, of which the armour and parts of 

 the skeleton have been described by MM. Weiss and DAlton in the Berlin 

 Transactions for 1827 and 1834 : and the generic and specific characters and 

 name, with an account of the dental system, and bones of the extremities, were 

 recorded in the Geological Proceedings for March 1839. It would seem that 

 parts of the same, or a nearly allied gigantic species were described in the same 



Hoploph 



Of the valuable and inte- 



' resting discoveries of this able Naturalist I regret that I was not aware until the 

 appearance of a notice of them in the Comptes Rendus for April, 1839.* 

 Amongst the fragments of bony tesselated armour in Mr. Darwin's collection are 

 a few pieces which were found by him, associated with remains of Toxodon and 

 Glossotherium near the Rio Negro in Banda Oriental.! These fragments, if we 

 may judge from their thickness, must have belonged to an animal at least as 



* An excellent translation of the description of the Brazilian fossils found by M. Lund, is published in the 



Annals of Natural History, July and August, 1839. 



+ At the distance of a few leagues from the locality here mentioned, other fragments were found by Mr. 

 Darwin ; also near Santa Fe, in Entre Rios ; also on the shores of the Laguna, near the Guardia del Monte, 

 South of Buenos Ayres ; also, according to the Jesuit Falkner, on the banks of the Tercero. 



