23 
The order includes, among existing animals, the armadillos, 
sloths, and ant-eaters of tropical America and Africa. Some 
of the largest of extinct mammals, of which remains have 
been discovered, as Glyptodon, Mylodon , and Megatherium , 
were also edentates—the first having been a sort of gigantic 
armadillo ten feet long. 
The Giant Ant-eater ( Myrmecophaga jubata), the Ta- 
mandua Ant-eater (Af. tetradactyla ), living entirely on ants, 
which they procure by means of a mucilaginous saliva cover¬ 
ing the tongue; Hoffman’s Sloth ( Cholopus hoffmani ), the 
Two-toed Sloth (C. didactylus ), and the Three-toed Sloth 
(.Bradypus tridactylus ), strange animals which pass their life 
in an inverted position, swinging, back downwards, by their 
long claws from the trees from which they devour the leaves 
and tender twigs, are among the most remarkable of this 
order of beings. 
Recent discoveries of fossils at Port Kennedy, on the 
Schuylkill river, have shown that in a geological period 
preceding that in which we live (the Pleistocene ), when the 
climate of northern regions was much warmer than at present, 
sloths belonging to species now extinct were among the 
commonest inhabitants of Pennsylvania. 
Leaving the Small Mammal House, the visitor passes the 
old mansion, “Solitude,” erected in 1785 by John Penn, a 
descendant of the founder of the Commonwealth, and now 
occupied by the offices of the Society—and descending a 
flight of steps turns to the left by 
No. 4.—THE BEAVER POND. 
The American Beaver ( Castor fiber canadensis') has been 
so valuable to commerce in times past, that much has been 
written of its habits, and volumes have been filled with mar¬ 
velous tales of the intellectual feats which have been revealed 
to wondering authors. It is too often the case, however, in 
popular natural science, that much nonsense of almost super¬ 
stitious character has passed accepted into animal life-his¬ 
tories, with painfully misleading results. There is little doubt 
that such has been the case here; the intelligence of the 
beaver being of the primitive kind which bears relation 
only to the common and most pressing needs of life, 
while in the higher grade of reasoning power which leads its 
