106 
SECOND REPORT — 1832 . 
Consul at Buenos Ayres. It was discovered by a peasant 
who, passing along the river Salado in a dry season, threw 
his lasso at something he saw half-covered with water, and 
dragged on shore the enormous pelvis of this animal; the 
rest of the bones, consisting of the greater part of the ske¬ 
leton, with many of the claws and teeth, were obtained by 
turning aside the current by means of a dam. Dr. Buckland 
proceeded to illustrate the peculiarities of its structure and 
mode of life, by reference to the peculiar organization and 
contrivances in its skeleton. This animal, and its kindred 
monster the Sloth, have been considered by Buffon and other 
naturalists to afford the greatest deviations from the ordinary 
structure of quadrupeds—deviations which they have viewed as 
indicating imperfection in their organization, without any com¬ 
pensating advantage. The object of the Professor's Lecture was 
to show, that these anomalous conditions and deviations are so 
far from being attended with inconvenience to the class of ani¬ 
mals in which they occur, that they afford striking illustrations 
of those rich and inexhaustible contrivances of nature by which 
the structure of every created being is precisely fitted to the 
state in which it was intended to live, and to the office which 
it was destined to perform. The peculiarities of the Sloth 
which render its movements so awkward and inconvenient 
upon the earth, are adapted with much advantage to its des¬ 
tined office of living upon trees and feeding upon their leaves ; 
the peculiarities of the Megatherium are not less wisely adapted 
to its office of feeding upon roots. 
This animal was about 8 feet high and 12 feet long; its 
teeth, though ill adapted for the mastication of grass or flesh, 
are wonderfully contrived for the crushing of roots, with the 
further advantage of keeping themselves constantly sharp set 
by the very act of performing their work. The fore feet, nearly 
a yard in length, and exceeding a foot in breadth, w^ere armed 
with three gigantic claws, each more than a foot long, and 
forming most powerful instruments for scraping roots out of 
the ground. The head and neck and anterior part of the trunk 
were comparatively light and small: its posterior proportions 
much exceeded the bulk of those of the largest elephant. The 
object of this apparently incongruous admixture of proportions, 
was to enable the creature to stand at ease on three legs, having 
the weight of its body chiefly supported by the hinder ex¬ 
tremities, and one of its fore paws at liberty to be exercised 
without fatigue in the constant operation of digging roots out 
of the ground. A further peculiarity consists in the fact of its 
sides and back having been armed with a coat of mail like the 
