Unhapvy Condition of the Sloth . 
165 
whereas I my selfe have kept them in my house, I could never perceive 
other but that they live onely of aire: and of the same opinion are in 
like manner all men of those regions, because they have never seene 
them eate any thing, but ever turne their heads and mouthes toward 
that part where the wind bloweth most, whereby may be considered 
that they take most pleasure in the ayre. They bite not, nor yet can 
bite, having very little mouthes : they are not venemous or noyous any 
way, but altogether brutish, and utterly unprofitable, and without 
commoditie yet knowne to men.” ( Purchas , vol. iii. p. 978.) 
Joseph Acosta, another traveller, is more accurate 
as to the number of claws that this musical animal 
possesses 
“ There is another strange beast, which for his great heavinesse, 
and slownesse in moving, they call perico-ligero, or the little light 
dogge; hee hath three nailes to every hand, and mooves both hand and 
feete, as it were by compasse and very heavily: it is in face like to a 
monkey, and hath a shrill crie; it climeth trees and eates ants.” 
( Purchas , vol. iii. p. 966.) 
Buffbn, in his Natural History , gives an account of 
the ai. According to this naturalist every part of the 
unfortunate sloth is an error in nature. It is unable to 
walk or even to crawl; it has no weapons of offence or 
defence; slowness, habitual pain, and stupidity are the 
results of the “ strange and bungling conformation of 
creatures to whom nature has been unkind, and who 
exhibit to us the picture of innate misery.” More recent 
observers, who have studied the habits of the animal in 
its native haunts, tell us that its formation is in perfect 
harmony with its environments. The sloth’s progress 
along the level surface of the ground is tedious and 
painful, but when it gains the branch of a tree, its natural 
habitat, the strong curved claws, which impeded its loco¬ 
motion before, form so many grappling irons, by means of 
which it can pass from bough to bough with ease and 
comfort, and with fair celerity. It feeds, not upon ants, 
but upon young leaves and shoots. 
