MKGATHEUIUM. 
103 
delations to one another, and to the functions of 
^ e animal in wdiich they occur. 
Ihe size of the Megatherium exceeds that of 
ic existing Edentata, to which it is most nearly 
led, in a greater degree than any other fossil 
nearest living congeners. 
It 1 the head and shoulders of a Sloth, it com- 
iie in its legs and feet, an admixture of the 
C] lamcters of the Ant-eater, the Armadillo, and 
tlie Chlamyphorus; it probably also still further 
resembled the Armadillo and Chlamyphorus, in 
being cased with a bony coat of armour. Its 
haunches were more than five feet wide, and its 
body twelve feet long and eight feet high ; its 
ee ^>^ere a yard in length, and terminated by 
most gigantic claws ; its tail was probably clad 
anv of 
tn.l Mammaha. Thus heavily coustructed, 
and ponderously accoutred, it could neither run, 
eap, nor climh, nor burrow under the 
etoun , and in all its movements must have 
been necessarily slow ; but what need of rapid 
teomotion to an animal, whose occupation of 
amf f r*' i" stationary? 
a crit *'■ f®®*- ‘® 
ure whose giant carcase was encased in 
unpenetrable cuirass, and who by a single 
y ot his paw, or lash of his tail, could in an 
slant have demolished the Couguar or the 
