422 
which might be considered as either belonging to the sloths or ant- 
eaters. In determining under which of these genera the megalonix 
should be placed, the tooth which had been obtained by M. de 
Beauvois was entirely decisive, since the ant-eaters have no teeth at 
all. An examination of this tooth showed also, that it was certainly 
that of a sloth ; it possessing the same simplicity of structure, and 
the same hollow in its middle, produced by attrition on the central 
bony part of the tooth. 
If the living analogue of this fossil animal existed, it could hardly, 
from the vastness of its size, have been hitherto concealed. The bones 
of its fore-arm are about a sixth longer than those of a common ox ; 
and supposing that the other parts possessed at least the same pro- 
portion, the whole animal must have equalled the largest oxen of 
Switzerland, or of Hungary. 
Plate XXI. Fig. 10, is the claw-bone of this animal, which was 
found in America. On the middle of its articular surface is a well- 
marked ridge, which necessarily restrained the motion of the joint. 
A similar ridge exists in the ant-eaters and sloths : but nothing of this 
kind is discoverable in the lion, or in any of the genus felis. 
Plate XXI. Fig. 11, is the tooth found by M. de Beauvois, in the 
caverns in Virginia, as were the preceding bones. This tooth at once 
determines the genus to which this animal belonged. It is the tooth 
of an animal of the sloth kind. The ant-eaters have no teeth. 
About the same time that the extraordinary fossil remains of the 
megalonix were found in North America, several bones, equally extra- 
ordinary and unknown, were found in the excavations made in the 
banks of the river Luxan, a league south-east of a village of the same 
name, about three leagues west-south-west of Buenos Ayres. These 
bones were sent to the Royal Museum at Madrid, in 1789, by the 
Marquis of Loretto, Viceroy of Buenos Ayres. The bones of a second 
animal of the same kind, which were found at Lima, were also sent 
to the same Museum in 1/95 ; and the bones of a third, which had 
