PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE MEGATHERIUM. 
361 
a creature of subterranean habits ; some earth-whale, as it were, or colossal mole. 
Pander and D’Alton nevertheless give to this animal, which they truly characterized 
as one of the most extraordinary of its class, the name of ^ Riesen-faulthier,’ Bra- 
dypus giganteus, or Gigantic Sloth* * * § . 
Cuvier, in preparing his new and enlarged edition of the famous ^ Recherches sur 
les Ossemens Fossiles,’ availed himself, in the fifth volume, published in 1823, of the 
labours of the German anatomists and draughtsmen, just cited, and substituted 
copies of their figures for those which he had previously borrowed from Bru. 
The teeth of the Megatherium are still described as being implanted by two roots, 
and as being sixteen in number, formulized as m, there is the same deficiency of 
the sternal ribs, pubic bones and tail ; the manubrium sterni continues to be repre- 
sented in a reversed position : but, with regard to the bones of the fore-foot, the 
organization of which was involved in obscurity, owing to the faulty manner in which 
Cuvier believed them to have been articulated, he endeavours to throw some new 
light on their arrangement. After a comparison of the figures given by Pander and 
D’Alton with the bones of the fore-foot in existing Edentata, Cuvier concludes that 
the fore-feet in the Madrid skeleton are transposed, the right being on the left, and the 
left on the right side ; that the index, medius and annular digits were the only ones 
provided with claws; that the thumb was clawless, and the little finger rudimental 
and concealed, in the living Megatherium, under the skin ; the hand being thereby 
specially formed for cleaving the soil and digging, like that of the Dasypus gigas. On 
this hypothesis, names are applied by Cuvier to certain bones of the carpus, none of 
which had before been determined -I-. Cuvier, however, adds, that ‘Mn order to verify 
his conjectures it must be necessary to have access to the skeleton itself, and to com- 
pare separately each bone of the fore-foot with their homologues in that species of 
Armadillo:]:.” His ideas of the affinities of the Megatherium have now undergone some 
modification : the following paragraph is added to the summary on this head given in 
the earlier edition of the great work : — “Its analogies approximate it to different 
genera of the Edentate family. It has the head and the shoulder of a Sloth, whilst 
the legs and the feet offer a singular mixture of characters peculiar to the Anteaters 
and Armadillos Cuvier concludes his account of the Megatherium in the second 
edition of the ^ Ossemens Fossiles,’ by appending a note communicated to him by 
* Das RIesen-Faulthier, &c. fol. 1821, p. 16. 
f Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles, 4to. t. v. pt. 1. 1823, p. 185. pi. 16. fig. 13. The letters indica- 
tive of the carpal bones have been omitted, by oversight, in the plates, but there is no difficulty in adding them 
according to the description given by Cuvier in the text. 
J “ Mais on sent que, pour verifier ces conjectures, il faudroitetre auprbs du squelette, et en comparer sepa- 
rement tous les os avec leurs analogues dans ce tatou, ce que j’espere que quelque anatomiste espagnol ne 
tardera pas k faire.” — Ib. p. 185. 
§ “ Ses analogies le rapprochent des divers genres de la famille des edentes. II a la tete et I’epaule d’un 
paresseux, et ses jambes et ses pieds offrent un singulier melange de caracteres propres aux fourmilliers et aux 
tatous.” — Ib. p. 189. 
3 c 2 
