102 
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 5 
not only against the sun and rain, but against 
the accumulations of sand and dust, that migh^ 
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 thed 
* To animals that dig only occasionally, like Badgers, Foxes> 
and Rabbits, to forth a habitation beneath the ground, but 
their food upon the surface, a defence of this kind would no* 
only have been unnecessary but inconvenient. 
The Armadillo and Chlamyphorus are the only known anim®'® 
that have a coat of armour composed of thick plates of bon®' 
like that of the Megatherium. As this peculiar covering is con' 
fined to these quadrupeds, we can hardly imagine its use to b® 
solely for protection against other beasts and insects ; but as tb® 
Armadillo obtains its food by digging in the same dry and sandy 
plains, which were once inhabited by the Megatherium, 
the Chlamyphorus lives almost entirely in burrows beneath tb® 
surface of the same sandy regions ; they both probably receW® 
from their cuirass the same protection to the upper parts of th®b^ 
bodies from sand and dust, which we suppose to have b®®® 
afforded by its cuirass to the Megatherium. The Pangolins at® 
covered with a different kind of armour, composed of horny 
moveable scales, in which there is no bony matter. 
