6 
NOTICE OF THE MEGATHERIUM. 
surpassing all known quadrupeds existing or extinct, — its singular composition of enormous 
pelvis and comparatively small head, a clavicle larger than that of any other animal, the 
structure of the fore-foot, which brought the outer edge of the toes upon the ground in walking, 
and finally, the absence of a tail and pubis (which were accidentally wanting in the Madrid 
specimen) ; these all together presented a problem in comparative anatomy which the Savants 
of Europe found it difficult to solve. The discovery in the same Pampa deposit of a huge 
osseous armor or carapace* led astray the attention of investigators, and still further increased 
the difficulty of ascertaining its true relations. The Spanish naturalists spoke of it simply as 
“ a quadruped very large and rare,” not undertaking to assign it to any distinct order of 
animals. Abildgaard, a Danish Professor, referred it to the Edentates. Roume, of the French 
Institute, placed it intermediate, as to form, between the Cape Ant-eater and the Great Ant- 
eater of America. The great Cuvier, from an examination of drawings (for he never enjoyed 
the opportunity of seeing the skeleton itself ), deduced its close affinity to the Sloth ; and 
proposed the name of “Megatherium.”! His conclusions as to the habits and food of the 
animal are summed up as follows. “ Its teeth prove that it lived on vegetables, and its robust 
fore-feet armed with sharp claws, make us believe that it was principally their roots which it 
attacked. Its magnitude and its talons must have given it sufficient means of defence. It 
was not of swift course, nor was this requisite, the animal needing neither to pursue nor to 
escape.” His views as to the exact nature of the fossil, particularly as to its food, were somewhat 
modified in later years, for he adds to a later edition of his famous work on Fossil Remains : 
“ Its analogies approximate it to different genera of the Edentate family. It has the head and 
shoulder of a Sloth, while the legs and feet offer a singular mixture of characters peculiar to 
.the Ant-eaters and Armadillos.” 
In 1821 Drs. Pander and Dalton, who had spent some time in a careful study of the 
specimen at Madrid, published a monograph on the Megatherium, in which they recognize 
its resemblance to the existing sloth, and to which, they say, it dwindled down by gradual 
degeneration. In their opinion, it was not merely an occasional digger of the soil, as Cuvier 
had last concluded, but altogether a creature of subterranean habits, — a sort of colossal mole. 
The characters offered by the feet and claws seem to have had more weight for these 
naturalists than did different , teachings of the other portions of the animal’s structure. Cuvier 
had ventured to say that the carapace found alongside of the Megatherium possibly belonged 
to it, thereby making it a gigantic species of Armadillo.^ This idea was afterwards advocated 
by Weiss, De Blainville, Grant, Clift and Buckland. De Blainville supported this view with 
the most determination, calling attention to the disposition of the spinous processes of the 
vertebrae, the angles of the ribs, the very remarkable flattening of the crest of the widely 
expanded ilia, and other modifications of the skeleton, which seemed adapted to the sus- 
* Since found by Owen to belong to a great fossil Armadillo, and described by him under the name of 
Glyptodon clavipes. 
f From fieyag great , and 6?}piov beast. 
J The osseous tesserae of this carapace were proportionate with those in the shield of the living Armadillo ; 
but none have ever been discovered of a size proportionate to an animal with the dimensions of the Megathe- 
rium. 
