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XVI. On the Megatherium (Megatherium Americammi, Cuvier and Blumenbach). 
Part II . — Vertebrae of the Trunk. By Professor Owen, F.R.S. S^c. 
Received November 8, 1850 — Read May 8, 1851. 
In commencing the description of the sl^eleton of the Megatherium, now in London, 
Plate XVII., which is the most complete that has yet reached Europe, a brief state- 
ment may be premised of the chief steps which have led to the restoration of the 
species to which it belongs. 
Cuvier, in communicating to the '' Annales du Museum’ (t. v. 1804) a translation 
of the first memoir on this subject — that, viz. by Garriga and Bru, published at 
Madrid in 1796, — gives all the requisite details respecting the discovery of the skele- 
ton therein described, and adds his own more important deductions as to its affinities 
from an examination and comparison of the plates of the Spanish work. 
It appears that proofs of these plates were transmitted in 1795 to the Institute 
of France, and that Cuvier, having been called upon by the ‘Class of Sciences’ at 
that period to give a report upon them, developed his views of the affinity of the 
animal to the Sloths and other Bdentates*, and proposed for it the name ‘Mega- 
therium-l-.’ 
M. Roume, the correspondent of the French Institute to whom that distinguished 
scientific body were indebted for the proof impressions of Garriga’s work, and who 
had an opportunity of examining the skeleton itself at Madrid (which Cuvier never 
enjoyed), inserted a brief notice of it in the ‘Bulletin de la Societe Philomathique ’ 
of the Republican year IV. (1795); in which, after particularly noticing that the pelvis 
was open towards the abdomen, the pubis being absent, without any indication of its 
having ever existed;];, concludes that the animal was intermediate, as to form, between 
the Cape Anteater (Orycteropus) and the Great Anteater of America {Myrmecophaga 
jubata). But he adds, that M. Cuvier, from an examination of the engravings of the 
skeleton, had recognized that the species was much more nearly allied to the Sloths 
than to the Anteaters. 
* “ Je developpai des-lors I’affinite de cet animal avec les paresseux et les autres edent^s .” — Annales du 
Museum, t. v. p. 377. 
t fJLeyas great, Br/pior beast. 
+ “ Son bassin est compose des os sacrum, ileum et ischium, mais il n’y a point de pubis ni d’indication qu’il 
ait existe. Ce bassin est ouvert du cote de I’abdomen.” — p. 97. It will be shown in this memoir that the sup- 
posed want of pubic bones was due to accidental mutilation of the pelvis of the skeleton at Madrid : the true 
profile of the pelvis is given at g 2 , es, e4, Plate XVII. 
MDCCCLV. 3 C 
