PKOEESSOK HUXLEY ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE GENUS GLYPTODON. 35 
might have belonged to an animal nearly allied to the Armadillos, or perhaps even to a 
very large, probably extinct, species of Dasypus. The fossil bones are too few to afford 
a safe foundation for so decided an opinion respecting the zoological affinities of the 
animal. A tolerably perfect skeleton is necessary in order to enable us, from the bones 
alone, to draw a safe conclusion as to the structure pf the remainder of an animal.” 
Singularly enough, D’ Alton does not mention the Megatherium throughout this paper, 
which however affords, by implication, an ample demonstration that the bony armour 
described has nothing to do with that animal*. 
In 1836, Laurillard, in editing the eighth volume of the second edition of Cuvier’s 
‘ Ossemens Fossiles,’ appends the following note to the letter of Don D. Laranaga, quoted 
above : — 
“ It is very possible that the Megatherium was, in fact, covered by a scaly cuirass ; 
but the great fragments which have been found must not be hastily attributed to it ; for 
the plaster casts sent from London f prove that an Armadillo of gigantic size coexists 
with the Megatherium on the plains of Buenos Ayres. These characteristic fragments 
consist of a calcaneum, an astragalus, and a scaphoid, which depart from those of existing 
Armadillos only in size, and by purely specific differences.” 
In 1836, then, it was clearly made out that the cuirassed extinct animal of South 
America is not the Megatherium and is allied to the Armadillos. However, Dr. Buckland, 
whose Bridgewater Treatise appeared in this year, and who therefore could hardly have 
been acquainted with the views of D’Alton and of Laurillard, still associated the 
dermal armour with the Megatherium — supporting his views by an elaborate and inge- 
nious teleological argument, which, like most reasonings of the kind, appeared highly 
satisfactory. But, in 1837, all further doubt upon the subject was removed by the dis- 
coveries of Dr. Lund, who, in that year, despatched to Copenhagen the second of the 
remarkable series of memoirs in which he reconstructed the ancient Fauna of Brazil J. 
In this paper Dr. Lund established the genus Hoplopliorus upon the dermal armour and 
certain bones of an edentate quadruped closely allied to, if not identical with, the 
“ Dasypus ” of Laranaga. 
Hoplophorus euphractus , the sole species of the new genus described in the memoir, 
was estimated by its discoverer to be of the size of an ox, and to have been provided 
with a carapace most nearly resembling that of Tolypeutes, but of an astonishing thick- 
ness. The extremities are said to have the general structure of those of the Armadillos, 
* Thus Muller says in his memoir on the hind foot, cited below, “ In der letzten Abhandlung ist von 
Herrn D’ Alton bewiesen, dass der Panzer nicht dem Megatherium angehort.” 
t Vide swpra, p. 32. Mr. Pentland appears to have been led to the same opinion by the examination of 
these casts in 1835. See Transactions of the Geological Society, vol. vi. ser. 2nd, p. 85, and Mr. Pentlaxd’s 
letter to M. Aeago in the ‘ Comptes Rendus’ for March 11, 1839. 
£ “ Blik paa Brasiliens Dyreverden for sidste Jordomvaeltning. Anden Afhandling : Patte dyrene. Lagoa 
Santa, 16 de Novbr. 1837,” published in ‘ Det Kongelige DanskeYidenskabernes Selskabs Naturvidenskabelige og 
Mathematiske Afhandlingar,’ Ottende Deel, 1841, p. 70. A notice of Lund’s labours, containing the names of 
his genera, is to be found in the ‘Oversigt over det Kongelige Danske Yidenskabernes Selskabs Fordhandlingar 
i Aaret 1838/ published by Oksted, the Secretary of the Academy. 
