162 FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 
degree exposed. We may also conjecture it to 
have had a further use in the protection afforded 
by it to the back, and upper parts of the body ; 
not only against the sun and rain, but against 
the accumulations of sand and dust, that might 
otherwise have produced irritation and disease.* 
Conclusion, 
We have now examined in detail the skeleton 
of an extinct quadruped of enormous magnitude ; 
every bone of which presents peculiarities, that 
at first sight appear imperfectly contrived, but 
which become intelligible when viewed in their 
* To animals that dig only occasionally, like Badgers, Foxes, 
and Rabbits, to form a habitation beneath the ground, but seek 
their food upon the surface, a defence of this kind would not 
only have been unnecessary but inconvenient. 
The Armadillo and Chlamyphorus are the only known animals 
that have a compact coat of plated armour, like that of the Me- 
gatherium. As this peculiar covering is confined to these qua- 
drupeds, we can hardly imagine its use to be solely for protection 
against other beasts and insects ; but as the Armadillo obtains 
its food by digging in the same dry and sandy plains, which were 
once inhabited by the Megatherium, and the Chlamyphorus lives 
almost entirely in burrows beneath the surface of the same sandy 
regions ; they both probably receive from their cuirass the same 
protection to the upper parts of their bodies from sand and dust, 
which we suppose to have been afforded by its cuirass to the Me- 
gatherium. The scales of the Chlamyphorus are of a dense sub- 
stance like hard leather. The Pangolins are covered with a diffe- 
rent kind of armour, composed of separate horny moveable scales. 
