1(30 
FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 
resembling the armour which covers these living 
inhabitants, of the same warm and sandy regions 
of South America. Fragments of this armour 
are represented at PI. 5, Figs. 12, 
A covering of such enormous weight, would 
have been consistent with the general structure 
of the Megatherium ; its columnar hind legs 
and colossal tail, were calculated to give it due 
support ; and the strength of the loins and ribs, 
being very much greater than in the Elephant, 
seems to have been necessary for carrying so 
ponderous a cuirass as that which we suppose 
to have covered the body.i' 
* The resemblance between some parts of this fossil armour, 
and of the armour of an Armadillo, (Dasypus Peba) is extended 
even to the detail of the patterns of the tuberculated compart- 
ments into which they are divided, see PL 5, Figs. 12, 14. Tli® 
increase of size in the entire shield is in both cases provided (or, 
by causing the centre of every plate to form a centre of growth, 
around which the margin receives continual additions, as the 
increasing bulk of the body requires an increase in the dimen- 
sions of the bony case, by which it is invested. Figs. 15, ldi 
17, represent portions of the armour of the head, body, and tad 
piece of the Chlamyphorus. Figs. 18, 19, represent the mannet 
in which the armour is disposed over the head and anterior pat^ 
of the body of the Chlamyphorus, and Dasypus Peba. Tb® 
body of the Megatherium, when covered with its correspondiOo 
coat of armour, must in some degree have resembled a tilted 
waggon. 
•f In the Transactions of the Academy of Berlin, 1830, P*’®' 
fessor Weis has published an account of some Bones of the 
Megatherium, discovered near Monte Video, accompanied hy 
several fragments of bony armour. Much of this armour he 
