M. Bravard believes that the whole
enormous Pampean deposit is a sub-aerial formation, like
sand-dunes: this seems to me to be an untenable doctrine.) Hence we
have good evidence that the above enumerated gigantic quadrupeds,
more different from those of the present day than the oldest of the
tertiary quadrupeds of Europe, lived whilst the sea was peopled
with most of its present inhabitants; and we have confirmed that
remarkable law so often insisted on by Mr. Lyell, namely, that the
"longevity of the species in the mammalia is upon the whole
inferior to that of the testacea." (5/3. "Principles of Geology"
volume 4 page 40.)
The great size of the bones of the Megatheroid animals, including
the Megatherium, Megalonyx, Scelidotherium, and Mylodon, is truly
wonderful. The habits of life of these animals were a complete
puzzle to naturalists, until Professor Owen solved the problem with
remarkable ingenuity. (5/4. This theory was first developed in the
"Zoology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle,'" and subsequently in
Professor Owen's "Memoir on Mylodon robustus.") The teeth indicate,
by their simple structure, that these Megatheroid animals lived on
vegetable food, and probably on the leaves and small twigs of
trees; their ponderous forms and great strong curved claws seem so
little adapted for locomotion, that some eminent naturalists have
actually believed that, like the sloths, to which they are
intimately related, they subsisted by climbing back downwards on
trees, and feeding on the leaves.
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