SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
15 
that of the recent sloth sinks into insignificance. Ranging 
through the antediluvian forests of South America, were 
sloth-like forms very similar in structure to those now exist- 
tent, but endowed with such ponderous bulk and strength 
that the rhinoceros and hippopotamus were evidently their 
inferiors : no living quadruped possesses muscular power 
equal to that indicated by the fossil bones of the Megathe¬ 
rium. The gigantic vegetables of antediluvian forests must 
have been crushed and rent in pieces to afford him a single 
meal. The fertile imagination of our geologists, with a view 
to the more complete consolidation of the group Edentata, 
has clothed this monster with an imaginary suit of armour, 
thus giving him the osteology of the sloth and the carapax 
of the armadillo ; but of this there is not sufficient evidence, 
the dorsal vertebrae wanting those peculiar lateral processes 
so essential to the support of a weighty osseous carapax. 
I should rather fancy him a sloth in all his characters, 
with a round monkey-like face, an awkward gait, shaggy 
hair, pectoral mammae, &c. Megalonyx, Milodon, and 
(if distinct) Dr. Harlan’s Orycterotherium Missouriense, 
evidently approach Megatherium, and unite in forming a 
group of animals which, though now extinct, must for¬ 
merly have played a conspicuous part on the earth’s 
surface, ere man was allowed to become the monarch of 
terrestrial beings. Inconsistent as it may appear to sup¬ 
pose any approach from the little monkey-like sloth to 
the giant elephant, these almost equally giant Megathe- 
ria will render the connexion more probable. The re¬ 
markable character of pectoral mammae possessed by the 
elephant in common with the sloth, is another evidence 
of approach, and the similarity of their food forms still 
another bond of union between the three superficially 
