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Seven leagues north of this city the same author found the skeletons of Mylodon robustus and Glyptodon ornatus.
From this neighbourhood he has lately sent to the British Museum the following fossils: Remains of three or four individuals of Megatherium; of three species of Glyptodon; of three individuals of the Mastodon Andium; of Macrauchenia; of a second species of Toxodon, different from T. Platensis; and lastly, of the Machairodus, a wonderful large carnivorous animal.
If you turn to South America, where, at the present day, we have great sloths and armadilloes and creatures of that kind, what do you find in the newest tertiaries? You find the great sloth-like creature, the Megatherium, and the great armadillo, the Glyptodon, and so on.
George and Balator in the place appointed. A guard came to conduct him, and he crossed to his seat and sank down with the look that could be made to mean whatever Amory meant. "I expect to be served," murmured the journalist in him, "by beautiful tame megatheriums, in sashes. And is that glyptodon salad?" St. George's eyes were upon the guests, so tranquilly seated, aware of the hour.
Ameghino gives a still more striking example of an earth-dwelling. Near Mercedes, about twenty leagues from Buenos Ayres, he picked up numerous human bones, together with arrow-heads, chisels, flint knives, bone stilettos and polishers, and bones of animals scratched and cut by man. The glyptodon.
In like manner, in the Pampas of South America the skeletons of Megatherium, Megalonyx, Glyptodon, Mylodon, Toxodon, Macrauchenia, and other extinct forms, are analogous to the living sloth, armadillo, cavy, capybara, and llama. The fossil quadrumana, also associated with some of these forms in the Brazilian caves, belong to the Platyrrhine family of monkeys, now peculiar to South America.
To let her have her way was a lesson to me in natural history both present and pre-historic. The most beautiful damsel that ever lived she would without a moment's hesitation turn into a Glyptodon or a Hippocrepian.
The enormous skeletons of the glyptodons struck him also as strangely similar to that of the armadillo. One evening, seated alone in the broad expanse of the pampas, the idea suddenly swept over him, stimulated, of course, by his study of Lyell: "Can it be that the little armadillo and the sloth of to-day are the degenerate descendants of the enormous megatherium and glyptodon of the past?"
Objections to sudden changes. Labyrinthodont. Potto. Cetacea. As to origin of bird's wing. Tendrils of climbing plants. Animals once supposed to be connecting links. Early specialization of structure. Macrauchenia. Glyptodon. Sabre-toothed tiger. Conclusion.
At the same time the differentiation of artiodactyle and perissodactyle forms existed as long ago as in the period of the Eocene ungulata, and that in a marked degree, as has been before observed. Again, no armadillo now living presents nearly so remarkable a speciality of structure as was possessed by the extinct glyptodon.
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