THE MONKEY FAMILY. 



21 



and indefatigable naturalists the world has ever 

 produced. He describes the sloth as " a miserable 

 and degraded production of nature, occupying the 

 lowest degree in the scale of quadrupeds." 



But a sojourn of eleven months in the forests of 

 Guiana, without having emerged from them for 

 even a single day, afforded me the finest opportu- 

 nity imaginable, of contemplating the sloth in its 

 native haunts. I soon changed my opinion of its 

 habits, and I placed in the '* Wanderings " all that 

 I had observed of them. 



The public doubted the accuracy of my observa- 

 tions. 



Years, however, after this, the arrival of a living 

 sloth at the Zoological Gardens, Kegent's Park, 

 proved my statement to the fullest extent. The 

 animal mounted up into a tree which had been 

 prepared for it, and moved rapidly along, suspended 

 by its natural hooks, (we can scarcely call them 

 claws) underneath the branches ; but it was never 

 observed to walk, or to rest upon the upper side 

 of those branches. 



The arrival too, of a fine ant-bear in the same 

 gardens, afforded a demonstration to the visitors, 

 that it could not possibly move forward with any 

 manner of ease or comfort to itself, unless the long 

 and sharp claws of its forefeet were doubled up 



