120 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. iv. 



of eighteen-pence. 3 The people informed me that 

 when first discovered, about two years previously, 

 it was quite perfect, but that the boys had since 

 knocked out the teeth and had put it on a post as 

 a mark to throw stones at. They showed me the 

 spot where it had been found after a sudden flood 

 had washed down part of the bank. Several 

 fragments of bone and of an armadillo-like case 

 were lying at the bottom of the almost dry water- 

 course. Some of these I collected, but from the 

 disturbed state of the country the box in which 

 they were packed was delayed on the road, and 

 was afterwards sent direct to England. 



1 For this reason the temporary marks by which 

 I had distinguished these bones from another set, 

 found at the distance of several leagues, were lost, 

 and I am now unable to say which are the frag- 

 ments This river (Rio Cancarana) has 



been celebrated since the time of the Jesuit 

 Falkner for the number of great bones and large 

 fragments of the armadillo-like case found in its 

 bed. The inhabitants told me that they had 

 made gate-posts of some leg bones, and I myself 

 saw two groups in situ of the remains of a mas- 

 todon projecting from a cliff. But they were in 

 so decayed a state that I could only bring away 

 small portions of a molar tooth.' 



From the same collection Owen described the 



3 This skull would probably entire skeleton is figured in 

 now fetch many pounds. An Natural Science, 1894, p. 119. 



