﻿Some Curious Animals. 



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not superior. The full length of a mounted skeleton from the fore part 

 of its head to the end of the tail is eighteen feet, of which the tail occu- 

 pies five feet. Taking all the various points of its structure together, they 

 clearly indicate affinities both with the existing sloths and with the ant- 

 eaters ; the skull and teeth more resembling those of the former, and the 

 vertebral column and limbs the latter. Tt is not difficult to infer the 

 food and habits of this enormous creature. That it was a leaf-eater there 

 can be little doubt ; but the greater size and more complex structure of 

 its teeth might have enabled it to crush the smaller branches, as well as 

 the leaves and succulent shoots, which form the food of the existing sloth. 

 It is, however, very improbable that it climbed into the branches of 

 the trees, like its diminutive congeners, but it is far more likely that it ob- 

 tained its subsistence by tearing them down with the great hook-like claws 

 of its powerful prehensile forelimbs, being easily enabled to reach tjiem 

 by raising itself up on the massive tripod formed by the two hind feet, 

 firmly fixed to the ground by the one huge falcate claw, and the stout, mus- 

 cular tail, The whole conformation of the hinder part of the animal is 

 strongly suggestive of such an action. There can also be but little doubt 

 but that all its movements were as slow and deliberate as those of its mod- 

 ern representative. 



Dana, in referring to the Megatherium, says: "It exceeded in size the 

 largest rhinoceros. The length of one of the skeletons is eighteen feet. 

 Its massy limbs were more like columns for support than like organs of 

 motion ; the femur was three times as thick as an elephant's ; the clumsy 

 tibia and fibila were soldered together ; the huge tail was like another hind 

 leg, making a tripod to support the heavy carcass when the animal raised 

 and wielded its great arms, and the hands, terminating the arms, were 

 about a yard long, and ended in huge claws." 



The greater portion of the remains of the Megatherium as yet found are 

 from the Post-tertiary geological formations of the Argentine Republic and 

 Paraguay, or the lands forming the basin of the Rio de la Plata. Dr. 

 Leidy has described, from similar formations in Georgia and South 

 Carolina, bones of a closely allied species, but smaller. 



The next animal is the Mastodon — the name meaning nipple-tooth — in 

 reference to the conical projections on the molar teeth of some of the 

 species, and given by Cuvier to a genus of extinct elephant-like animals. 

 In size, general form, and principal osteological characters, the Mastodon 

 resembled the elephant. It is by the teeth alone that the two groups are 

 to be distinguished, and so numerous are the modifications of these organs 

 in each, and so insensibly do they pass by a series of gradations into one 



