1841-42 A ■GIGANTIC SLOTH 189 
Gould, and his brother came here for some 
music.’ 
The remainder of the year 1841 was spent by 
Owen in collecting materials for his ‘ Report on the 
British Fossil Mammalia’ (British Association), 
1842 and 1843. These reports were the basis of 
his work, ‘ British Fossil Mammals and Birds ’ 
1844-1846, which formed one of the beautifully 
illustrated series on British animals brought out 
by his friend Van Voorst. 
At the beginning of 1842 Owen was working 
upon his ‘ Description of the Skeleton of an Extinct 
Gigantic Sloth {Mylodon robzisitts),' discovered 
near the city of Buenos Ayres. The habits of 
life of these extinct creatures were a complete 
puzzle. Their teeth showed, by their simple 
structure, that they lived on vegetable food, and 
probably on the leaves or tender twigs of trees ; 
their huge bodies and great strong curved claws, 
Darwin remarks, ‘seemed so little adapted for 
locomotion that some eminent naturalists actually 
believed that, like the sloths (to which they are 
intimately related), .they subsisted by climbing 
back downwards on trees and feeding on the 
leaves.’ It was certainly a bold idea to conceive 
even antediluvian trees with branches strong 
enough to bear animals as big as elephants ! 
Owen conjectured that. Instead of climbing on the 
trees, they pulled the branches down to them, 
and tore up the smaller trees by the roots, and so 
