674 



THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



discovered a flaw among the general beauty of the Creator's works ; but let him view 

 the animal in the situation for which it was ordained, and he will soon retract his hasty- 

 judgment, and discover it to be no less perfect in its kind, and no less admirably fitted 

 for its sphere of existence, than the most highly organized of the mammalian tribes. 

 For the sloth, in his wild state, spends his whole life in the trees, and never once 

 touches the earth but through force or by accident. Like the monkey, he has been 

 formed for an exqlusively sylvan life, high above the ground, in the green canopy of 

 the woods ; but while the nimble simige constantly live upon the branches, the sloth is 

 doomed to spend his whole life under them. He moves, he rests, he sleeps suspended 

 from the boughs of trees, a wonderfully strange way of life, for which no other 

 four-footed animal of the Old or the New World has been destined. 



And now examine his organization witli reference to this peculiar mode of exist- 

 ence, and all his seeming deficiencies and deformities will appear most admirably 

 adapted to his wants, for these strong, muscular, preposterously long fore-feet, while 

 the hinder extremities are comparatively short and weak, these slender toes armed 

 with enormous claws, are evidently as well suited for clasping the rugged branch as 

 the enormous hind legs of the kangaroo for bounding over the arid plain. Indeed, in 

 every case, we shall find the fundamental type or idea of the four extremities belong- 

 ing to the vertebrated animals most admirably modified according to their wants : here 

 shortened, there prolonged ; here armed with claws, there terminating in a hoof ; here 

 coalescing to a tail, there assuming the shape of a fin ; here clothed with feathers to 

 cleave the air, there raised to the perfection of the human hand, the wonderful instru- 

 ment of a still more wonderful intelligence ; and who, seeing all this, can possibly 

 believe that the world is ruled by chance, and not by an all-pervading and almighty 

 power ? Thus the sloth, so helpless when removed from his native haunts, is far from 

 exhibiting the same torpidity in his movements when seen in the place for which Na- 

 ture fitted him. 



" One day, as we were crossing the Essequibo," says Mr. Waterton, " I saw a large 

 sloth on the ground upon the bank ; how he had got there nobody could tell ; the 

 Indian said he had never surprised a sloth in such a situation before : he would hardly 

 have come there to drink, for both above and below the place the branches of the trees 

 touched the water, and afforded him an easy and safe access to it. Be this as it may, 

 though the trees were not above twenty yards from him, he could not make his way 

 through the sand time enough to escape before we landed. As soon as we came up 

 to him, he threw himself upon his back, and defended himself in gallant style with 

 his fore-legs. ' Come, poor fellow ! ' said I to him, ' if thou hast got into a hobble 

 to-day, thou shalt not suffer for it ; I'll take no advantage of thee in misfortune ; the 

 forest is large enough both for thee and me to rove in. Go thy ways up above, and 

 enjoy thyself in these endless wilds ; it is more than probable thou wilt never have 

 another interview with man. So fare thee well.' On saying this I took up a long 

 stick which was lying there, held it for him to hook on, and then conveyed him to a 

 high and stately mora. He ascended with wonderful rapidity, and in about a minute 

 he was almost at the top of the tree. He now went off" in a side direction, and caught 

 hold of the branch of a neighboring tree ; he then proceeded towards the heart of the 

 forest. I stood looking on, lost in amazement at his singular mode of progress. I 

 followed him with my eye till the intervening branches closed in betwixt us, and then 



