36 PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE OSTEOLOGY OE THE GENUS GLYPTODON. 
the feet being short and thick, with remarkably broad and short nails ; so that they must 
have resembled those of an Elephant, or a Hippopotamus. The skull was sloth-like, and 
its jugal arch exhibited the structure characteristic of those animals. The teeth were 
similar to the molars of Ccvpybara, but simple instead of being made up of many plates. 
Professor Bronn, publishing the .second edition of his 4 Lethsea Geognostica ’ in the 
spring of 1838, and unacquainted with Lund’s labours, proposed the name of Chlamy- 
dotherium for the animal to which the carapace described by Weiss and D’Alton 
belonged, in case the foot should really appertain to it ; and Orycterotherium , in case the 
foot should belong to a different animal. 
In March of the same year, it appears that M. Vilardebo, Director of the Museum 
of Monte Video, and M. Isabelle published conjointly, in Nos. 2551, 2553, and 2555 of 
a journal, the ‘ Universal,’ an account of an animal which they had discovered on the 
Pedernal, in the Department of Canelones*. 
After removing a thin layer of clay, these observers met with a shield formed of pieces 
of bone separated from one another by a slight interval ; these pieces, 25 to 50 millimetres 
in diameter, and varying in thickness from 12 to 40 millimetres, were hexagonal: the 
largest occupied the dorsal region of the carapace, and the smallest its lateral regions. 
Each polygon presented a central disk (14 to 27 millimetres in diameter), from whence 
radiated six or eight lines, between which as many quadrangular arese were left. These 
pieces of bone were symphysially united so as to form a very regular mosaic : the cara- 
pace appeared to be fringed with conical pieces forming a semicircle of 24 centimetres. 
The carapace was about 4 metres wide, and was as convex as a cask. The bones dis- 
covered in it were lumbar vertebrae and pelvic bones. In another place was discovered 
a femur about 0 - 57 metre long, with many plates of the carapace, and a tail formed of 
a single mass of bone (covered nevertheless by pieces soldered together), in the middle 
of which were widely separated caudal vertebrae. The tail was more than 0-50 metre 
long, and more than O' 36 metre in diameter at the base. 
Tire authors discuss the question — to what class do these fossils belong 1 — with much 
sagacity, and conclude by expressing the opinion that they appertain to a species of 
Dasypus , which they term I), antiquus, and which they briefly characterize as follows : 
44 Cingulis dorsalibus nullis: verticillis caudalibus nullis.” 
The volume of the Transactions of the Danish Academy, already cited, contains 
another communication from Dr. Lund, dated Lagoa Santa, September 12, 1838, in 
which he speaks of the fossils described by D’ Alton, and identifies the animal to which 
they belonged, generically, with Hoplophorus, though he regards it as a distinct species, 
and names it Hoplophorus Selloi. Accompanying this paper are sundry figures of parts 
of the carapace and of bones of the hind foot of Hoplophorus. 
Dr. Lund returns to the subject in a long letter addressed to M. V. Audouin, dated 
the 5th of November 1838 (extracts from which are published in the 4 Comptes Rendus ’ 
for the 15th of April 1839), which contains an enumeration, with brief descriptive 
notices, of the seventy-five species of fossil Mammalia which this untiring explorer had 
* See the Bulletin de la Societe Geologique de France, t. xi. p. 159 (1840). 
