TWO-TOED SLOTH. 157 



more uniform or less varied tinge; having no 

 marks or shades of black and ferruginous as in 

 the former; and, in particular, is strikingly dis- 

 tinguished, as a species, by having only two claws 

 on the fore feet : it is also a much more active ani- 

 mal, and, even when imported into Europe, has been 

 known, according to the testimony of the Count 

 de Buffon, to ascend and descend from a tall tree 

 several times in a day; whereas the three-toed 

 Sloth with difficulty performs that operation in a 

 whole day; and can scarce crawl some hundred 

 yards in the space of many hours. The disposi- 

 tion of the hair on the head of the two-toed Sloth 

 differs also from that of the former animal, and is 

 directed immediately backwards, without being 

 in the least reversed round the front as in that 

 species. A very fine specimen may be seen in 

 the Leverian Museum; and a young one not 

 much larger than a Squirrel, and of a very light 

 or whitish colour is in the British Museum, as 

 well as a more advanced specimen, preserved in 

 spirits. 



In Mr. Carlisle's description of the remarkable 

 disposition of the trunks of the subclavian and 

 iliac arteries in the Lemur tardigradus, he very 

 properly observed, that " it would be of some im- 

 portance in physiology to ascertain whether the 

 other slow-moving Quadrupeds have any peculiar 

 arrangement of the arteries of their limbs," the 

 single fact above recorded being hardly suffi- 



