Chapter VII: Part 7

Footnote 25:

See Ossem. Foss. iii. Pl. XXVI. fig. 5.

Footnote 26:

This diameter increases rapidly in the posterior lumbar vertebræ, in
correspondence with the enlargement of the spinal chord, which gives
off the great nerves of the hinder extremities.

Footnote 27:

The relative breadth of these bones is shown in the figures of the
fore-foot, Pl. XI.

Footnote 28:

The figures in Pl. XIV. preclude the necessity of giving the
admeasurements of the astragalus.

Footnote 29:

“Comme le genre de vie de chaque animal est toujours en rapport avec
les mouvements dont sa mâchoire est susceptible, on retrouve dans la
conformation des surfaces destinées à l’articulation, les
particularités qui semblent le déterminer d’avance. Ainsi dans les
animaux qui vivent de chairs, substances filamenteuses qui ne peuvent
être écrasées, mais seulement coupées et dechirées, le mouvement de la
mâchoire inférieure ne peut s’exécuter que de haut en bas. Dans les
herbivores, les frugivores et les granivores, comme le principal
mouvement est celui de broiement pour écraser, comprimer les herbes et
les fruits, pour briser les grains et les réduire, en pâte, le
mouvement des mâchoires se fait encore de droite à gauche, et
réciproquement, on en même temps, de devant en arrière, en un mot,
dans un plan horizontal autant que dans un vertical: les uns
représentent des ciseaux, les autres des meules de moulin.”

Footnote 30:

In the monotrematous Echidna, the large canal for the lingual nerve
has a widely different direction and course from that in the placental
Edentata.

Footnote 31:

Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, vol. iv. p.
246.

Footnote 32:

Its relations to the Edentata, previously conjectured by Dr. Wistar,
are proved in the Annales du Muséum, tom. v. p. 358; its more
immediate affinities as an annectant form in that group are discussed
in the edition of the Ossem. Fossiles, of 1833, tom. v. pt. 1. p. 160.

Footnote 33:

Speaking of this tooth, Cuvier observes, “Je l’avois cru d’abord
nécessairement _de paresseux_; mais aujourdhui que je connois mieux
l’ostéologie des divers _tatous_, je trouve qu’elle ressemble au moins
autant à une dent de l’un des grands _tatous_.”—Loc. cit. p. 172.

Footnote 34:

Synopsis Mammalium.

Footnote 35:

It is most probable that the substance which is here termed “enamel,”
is similar to that which forms the dense prominent ridges in the tooth
of the Megatherium, and which I have shown to be composed of minute
parallel calcigerous tubes, similar to the ivory or bone of the human
tooth.

Footnote 36:

Medical and Physical Researches, pp. 323–4.

Footnote 37:

Loc cit. p. 330.

Footnote 38:

Spix and Martius, Reise in Brazil, Band ii. p. 5.

Footnote 39:

Harlan’s Medical and Physical Researches, 1835, p. 334. M. de
Blainville speaks of a cast of a fragment of a lower jaw “portant
encore _cinq_ dents en série;” as having been transmitted to the
Museum of the Garden of Plants from North America, together with other
bones, all of which he refers to the genus _Megalonyx_; M. de
Blainville does not describe these teeth, which is to be regretted,
inasmuch as, if he be correct in regard to their number, which can
hardly be doubted, and if he wrote with any clear and definite ideas
of the generic characters of _Megalonyx_, this would indicate that
_Megalonyx_ differed generically both from _Megatherium_ and _Mylodon_
in a more important dental character than has hitherto been suspected
(See “Comptes Rendus, &c.” 1839, No. V. p. 142.)

Footnote 40:

Dr. Harlan also indicates differences in certain parts of the skeleton
of the New York fossils as compared with his _Meg^x. laqueatus_; but
thinks them probably due to a difference in the age of the
individuals: he says “There is also in Mr. Graves’ collection, in New
York, a tibia, nearly perfect from the right leg; the segment of a
flattened sphere, on which the external condyle of the femur moves, is
rather more depressed, than in the specimen from Big-bone-cave. Other
marks and peculiarities are observable on this bone, not found on that
of the _Megalonyx laqueatus_ of Big-bone-cave, but they are probably
due to a difference in the age of the individuals.” Loc. cit. p. 335.

Footnote 41:

Μυλη, _mola_; οδους, _dens_.

Footnote 42:

If the lower jaw of _Mylodon Harlani_, bears the same proportion to
its teeth as does that of _Mylodon Darwinii_, it must be about two
feet in length.

Footnote 43:

See Proceedings of the Geological Society, March 1839, and Parish’s
Buenos Ayres, p. 178, _b_, Pl. 1, fig. 2 and 3.

Footnote 44:

Σκελις, _femur_; Θηριον, _bellua_; in allusion to the disproportionate
size of the thigh-bone.

Footnote 45:

This beach is covered at spring tides; many parts of the skeleton were
encrusted with recent _Flustræ_, and small marine shells were lodged
in the crevices between the bones.

Footnote 46:

It requires little stretch of imagination to conceive that this more
complex posterior tooth (Pl. XXIII., fig. 4, 4) in the lower jaw is
the representative of the two smaller posterior teeth (ib. fig. 3, 4,
and 5) of the upper jaw conjoined.

Footnote 47:

Lund, Videnskabernes Selskabs, Natur.: og Mathem. Afhandlinger,
Kiöbenhavn, vol. viii.

Footnote 48:

Linn. Trans. vol. xvii. (1833) p. 17.

Footnote 49:

Zool. Proceedings, 1832, p. 134.

Footnote 50:

The anterior prolongation of the sternum in front of the neck and the
corresponding anterior position of the clavicles and scapulæ occasions
a transference of such a proportion of the moving powers of the head
from the cervical vertebræ to these bones in the mole, as renders any
modifications of these vertebræ, like those in the Armadillo, uncalled
for.

Footnote 51:

Loc. cit.

Footnote 52:

Bridgewater Treatise, p. 46.

Footnote 53:

Bridgewater Treatise, p. 152.

Footnote 54:

_Dasypus 6–cinctus_, L., is the species of which I have the astragalus
separate, so as to be able to follow out the comparison.

Footnote 55:

In distinguishing these trochleæ as fibular and tibial, it is to be
understood that the terms relate only to aspects corresponding to the
position of those bones, and not that the fibula is articulated to the
whole of the trochlea so called: it probably rested only upon the
outer facet in the Scelidothere.

Footnote 56:

This astragalus was found at Santa Fé, in Entre Rios, associated with
the remains of the Mastodon and Toxodon; but from its size and form I
entertain little doubt that it belonged to a Megatherioid quadruped as
large as the Mylodon or Megalonyx. The brief allusion to the
astragalus of the Megalonyx in M. Lund’s Memoir does not afford the
means of determining with certainty this point.

Footnote 57:

See the figures of this bone, given by Cuvier in Pl. x. and xi.
Ossemens Fossiles, vol. v. part i.

Footnote 58:

Ossemens Fossiles, vol. v. part i. p. 163.

Footnote 59:

For the translation of the following passage, and of others alluded to
in the present work, from the original Danish Memoir of M. Lund, loc.
cit., I am much indebted to the Rev. W. Bilton, M.A. &c. &c.:—

“Thus in every point of comparison we have instituted between the
organization of burrowers and climbers; we have seen that the
Megalonyx constantly differs from the former and resembles the latter;
but the point to which I last alluded (the obliquity of foot), I
consider to be quite decisive.

“There is one other point in its organization, which is not quite
without weight in reference to our present inquiry,—I mean its
unusually powerful tail. Now, it is certainly true that many animals
which are not climbers have a powerful tail, as e. g. Armadillos,
while the others that climb well, have none, as Sloths and Apes. But
when we find a remarkably powerful tail attached to an animal that
according to all probability was a climber, we are led to infer that
this organ must have served for that purpose: in other words, that the
Megalonyx was furnished with a prehensile tail.

“How far the Megatherium is to be considered in the same light as the
Megalonyx cannot be decided without an accurate and scientific
examination of its skeleton at Madrid. Pander and D’Alton do not
mention any distortion of the hind-foot, neither does their figure
exhibit any. It is nevertheless quite possible that such may exist,
but that it is disguised by the faulty manner in which the skeleton is
put up. It strikes me as little probable that two animals which agree
so well in the principal particulars of their organization should
differ so much in one of the most important. The Megatherium has been
proved by later discoveries to possess the same powerful tail as the
Megalonyx, and as it corresponds also with the latter entirely in the
conformation of its extremities, the same difficulties present
themselves against the supposition of its having been a burrower. But
if the Megatherium was really a climber, it must have had still more
occasion (on account of its greater size), for that peculiar
arrangement of the hind-feet which we have described in the
Megalonyx.”

Footnote 60:

Descripcion del Esqueleto de un quadrupedo muy corpulento y raro, que
se conserva en el Real Gabinete de Historia Natural de Madrid. Folio,
Madrid, 1796.

Footnote 61:

Ossemens Fossiles, tom. v. pt. i. p. 179.

Footnote 62:

“Das Riesen Faulthier, Bradypus giganteus, von Dr. Chr. Pander und Dr.
E. D’Alton.” Folio, Bonn, 1821.

Footnote 63:

Transactions of the Geological Society, 1835, p. 438.

Footnote 64:

An excellent translation of the description of the Brazilian fossils
found by M. Lund, is published in the Annals of Natural History, July
and August, 1839.

Footnote 65:

At the distance of a few leagues from the locality here mentioned,
other fragments were found by Mr. Darwin; also near Santa Fé, in Entre
Rios; also on the shores of the Laguna, near the Guardia del Monte,
South of Buenos Ayres; also, according to the Jesuit Falkner, on the
banks of the Tercero.

Footnote 66:

Mr. Darwin has more particularly described the circumstances of the
embedment of this tooth in his Journal of Researches, p. 149, during
the Voyage of the Beagle.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. The Errata was corrected. 2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 4. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 6. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript character, e.g. M^r.