160 
ORDERS OF MAMMALS— TOOTHLESS QUADRUPEDS 
bark that has been given to any quadruped. 
This resemblance to bark is heightened by the 
fact that the back hair of many a sloth in its 
native forest has a greenish tint, like moss on a 
tree-trunk, due to the presence on the hair of 
living vegetable algae. This aids the sloth in 
escaping observation. 
On the mighty Essequibo River, in British 
Guiana, I once made a special hunt for sloths. 
Having found it useless to hunt them by stalking 
through the dense and lofty forests, I took a leaky 
old canoe, an Indian to help furnish power, and 
paddled fifteen miles and back. We followed 
the shores, going and coming, and secured eight 
specimens of the Three-Toed Sloth , 1 the one 
with a brown saddle-mark of short hair in the 
middle of its back. 
We found them in the tops of low trees at the 
water’s edge, spread-eagled on the outer branches, 
or hanging upside down, but always eating leaves. 
They did not know what it was to “take alarm,’’ 
and try to escape. Judging by the awful delib- 
eration of those that we saw in motion, I esti- 
mated that a really swift sloth could travel 
half a mile in twenty-four hours, if not side- 
tracked. 
We shot some of our specimens, and others 
we took alive by cutting down their trees. One 
tree fell with its top in the river, and the sloth 
was carried four feet under water. But even 
the prospect of drowning did not make him 
hurry to the surface. To my amazement, he 
climbed up through the branches, slowly and 
deliberately, until at last, with dignity entirely 
unruffled, he appeared above the surface, and 
looked at me with a most disgusted expression 
on his wooden countenance. 
Sloths eat so slowly that before one meal is 
over it is time for the next, so that their meals 
overlap one another. 
The Three-Toed Sloth is not found above 
the Isthmus of Panama, but two other species 
inhabit Central America as far north as Nicara- 
gua. It is considerably smaller than the next 
species, having a head-and-body length of 21 
inches, while the spread of its outstretched 
arms, exclusive of the claws, is 32J inches. 
The tail is so very short that it seems to be 
wanting entirely, but in reality its length is 1 A 
inches. 
1 Brad'y-pus tri-dac 1 ty-lus. 
The Two-Toed Sloth , 3 also called Hoff- 
man’s Sloth, ranges northward as far as Costa 
Rica. It is the largest living member of the 
Sloth Family, and its appearance is well shown 
in the accompanying picture of a specimen kept 
in the Zoological Park. It inhabits the same 
regions as the preceding species, but is less com- 
mon. It is occasionally seen alive in large zoo- 
logical gardens, and when once properly accli- 
mated, lives in captivity very well. Usually, 
however, it is difficult to keep alive. In cap- 
tivity its food is chopped carrots, cabbage, let- 
tuce, and boiled rice. A sloth usually sleeps sus- 
Sanborn, Photo., N. Y. Zoological Park. 
TWO-TOED SLOTH. 
pended from a branch, but at the same time it 
always seeks a position in which it can rest its 
body on a branch below parallel with the one to 
which it clings. 
In prehistoric times, a Family of gigantic 
ground sloths, called Meg-a-the'ri-ums, creat- 
ures as large as the largest rhinoceros, lived on the 
pampas of southern South America and also in 
the southern United States. Plaster casts of the 
entire skeleton of the most celebrated species 
{Megatherium cuvieri), from South America, 
17 feet 9 inches long, are now to be found in 
many American museums. 
2 Cho-loe'pus hoff’man-i. 
