128 The American Geologist. Feb. 1891 
run um, but it has since been generally known by the name M. 
Cuvieri, given in his honor b} r Desmarest.* 
A second skeleton was found in 1705, at Lima, and since then 
several others, partially complete, have been ^discovered, and sent 
to Europe. The model in the British Museum was constructed 
from the study of detached bones preserved there, and in the 
Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and is the 
origin of the second current figure of this animal, which represents 
it with the right hand clasping the trunk of a tree — a position 
somewhat hypothetical. 
This gigantic ground-sloth— for an animal of so massive propor- 
tions could not climb — measured 18 feet in length, and its bones 
are heavier than those of an elephant, the thigh-bone being three 
times as thick as that of the largest existing elephant. Its 
strength, as indicated by the ridges and crests, must have been 
enormous. It must, therefore, have sought its sustenance on the 
ground, and it was originall} r supposed to have lived on roots ; 
-- but, by a masterly piece of deductive reasoning. Sir Richard 
Owen showed that this great ground sloth lived on the foliage of 
trees as the existing sloth, but with this difference — that instead 
of climbing among the branches, it actually uprooted the tree 
bodily. In this task, the animal sat upon its huge haunches and 
its mighty tail, as on a tripod, and then grasping the trunk with 
its powerful arms, either wrenched it up by the roots or broke it 
short off, above the ground. Marvellous as this ma}* seem, it can 
be shown that every detail of the skeleton of the megathere ac- 
cords with the supposition that it obtained its food in this way." f 
(Lydekker's Manual of Palaeontology, p. 120(3.) 
In thus seeking its food it would also find a use for its enor- 
* Several facts, not easy of explanation, induce the writer to ask if 
this is not the same skeleton as that which confronts the visitor in the 
palseontological museum, in the Jardin des Plantes? The resemblance 
is strong. In that case, was it transferred from Madrid to Paris, dur- 
ing the occupation of the Peninsula by the armies of France during the 
Peninsula war ? The story of the Mosasaurus of Maastricht, is familiar 
to palaeontologists. 
■fin connection with this point, it was formerly suggested by Sir 
Woodbine Parish, that these animals might have lived on the American 
aloe (Agave Americana), being quite capable of chewing its hard and 
spiny leaves. It may also be mentioned that the specimen of the my- 
lodon described by Owen had had its skull twice fractured during life 
and healed. This, it has been suggested, may have been caused by the 
fall of a tree which the creature was tearing up. 
