PROFESSOR OWEN, proceeding to a detailed description of the skull, gives a minute and elaborate analysis of the malar bone: this remarkable bone projects from the skull somewhat in the manner of a small elk-antler; it commences with a short thick stem, somewhat flattened above, where it forms the floor of the orbit, and there expands into a broad vertical trilobed plate, as represented in the above figure. In no family of existing or extinct animals, besides the sloths, do we find any approach to this extraordinary formation: though the more lengthened and straightened skull of the Mylodon, and its more complete zygomatic arch, are characters possessed more fully by the armadilloes than by the sloths. With all other mammals it were useless to compare the skull now before us: once place it beside that of the horse, ox, elk, tapir, rhinoceros, dugong, or any other herbivorous animal of equal bulk, and we shall not only be struck with the manifold discrepancies, but at once conclude that the Mylodon obtained its food in a manner no longer practised by living animals. The extinct Megatherium, however, presents us with a conformation similar in many respects to that of the Mylodon, and more especially in the possession of that singular descending process of the malar bone, which so peculiarly characterizes the sloth, and which alone is sufficient to show the close affinity of these gigantic antediluvians with our existing sloths.

The teeth of the Mylodon are eighteen in number, five on each side above and four below: they are simple, long, fangless, of uniform substance and nearly straight, with the exception of the first tooth in the

upper jaw, which is slightly curved each has a central body of vascular dentine, enclosed in a cylinder of hard unvascular dentine, which forms a prominent ridge, and which is again cased in a covering of cement.

The inference the author derives from the structure of the teeth, is that the Mylodon fed on the leaves or slender terminal twigs of trees, in this respect resembling the giraffe, the elephant and the sloth. The extraordinary stature of the giraffe raises its mouth to the immediate vicinity of its food; the trunk of the elephant conveys the food to its mouth; and the light figure of the sloth enables him to run along the under side of the boughs, till he finds he has reached a commodious feeding-place: but the Mylodon and his congeners possessed short and massive necks, no trunk, and the bulk of a Hippopotamus or Rhinoceros; so that to obtain their food in the same manner as either the giraffe, the elephant or the sloth, appears decidedly impossible, unless, with Dr. Lund, we imagine a vegetation gigantic in proportion; but even granting this, it is difficult to believe that creatures rivalling the Hippopotamus in bulk, would approach the leaves, which are usually placed on the most slender twigs. Professor Owen, after alluding to the very perfect clavicles of the Mylodon, which have been received alternately as evidence of the burrowing and climbing hypotheses, does not necessarily imply the faculty of climbing or burrowing, since the bear, a climbing, and the badger, a burrowing animal, are perfectly destitute of them: but from a comparison of the hand of the Mylodon with that of certain ant-eaters, he thinks it may be inferred that it was an instrument employed in digging or displacing the earth. The author considers the unequalled bulk of the posterior extremities, and the corresponding excess of muscular power, as shown by the spinal crest of the sacrum, and the broad, rugged, and anteriorly produced margin of the ilium, as further evidence against the climbing theory; and he regards the hind legs as uniting with the enormous tail in forming a tripod, which supported the weight of the animal, leaving the hands at liberty.

"If the foregoing physiological interpretation of the osseous frame-work of the gigantic extinct sloths be the true one, they may be supposed to have commenced the process of prostrating the chosen tree by scratching away the soil from the roots; for which office we find in the Mylodon the modern scansorial fore-foot of the sloth modified after the type of that of the partially fossorial ant-eater. The compressed or subcompressed form of the claws, which detracts from their power as burrowing instruments, adds to their fitness for penetrating the interspaces of roots, and for exposing and liberating them from the attached soil. This operation having been duly effected by the alternate action of the fore-feet, aided probably by the unguiculate digits of the

hind-feet, the long and curved fore-claws, which are habitually flexed and fettered in the movements of extension, would next be applied to the opposite sides of the loosened trunk of the tree: and now the Mylodon would derive the full advantage of those modifications of its fore-feet by which it resembles the Bradypus; the correspondence in the structure of the prehensile instruments of the existing and extinct sloths, extending as far as was compatible with the different degrees of resistence to be overcome. In the small climbing sloth the claws are long and slender, having only to bear the weight of the animal's light body, which is approximated by the action of the muscles towards the grasped branch, as to a fixed point. The stouter proportions of the prehensile hooks of the Mylodon accord with the harder task of overcoming the resistance of the part seized and bringing it down to the body. For the long and slender branchial and anti-branchial bones of the climbing sloth we find substituted in its gigantic predecessor a humerus, radius and ulna of more robust proportions, of such propor

tions, indeed, in the Mylodon robustus, as are unequalled in any other known existing or extinct animal. The tree being thus partly undermined and firmly grappled with, the muscles of the trunk, the pelvis and hind limbs, animated by the nervous influence of the unusually large spinal cord, would combine their forces with those of the anterior members in the efforts at prostration. And now let us picture to ourselves the massive frame of the Megatherium, convulsed with the mighty wrestling, every vibratting fibre reacting upon its bony attachment with a force which the sharp and strong crests and apophyses loudly bespeak :-extraordinary must have been the strength and proportions of that tree, which, rocked to and fro, to right and left, in such an embrace, could long withstand the efforts of its ponderous assailant.”—p. 147.

A few pages are occupied by elaborate observations on several remarkable points, particularly the arrangement of the bones of the hind feet, and the evidence, which appears irresistible, of the existence of a large and powerful tongue, with which the animal, in all probability, drew down the boughs before devouring them. The structure of the feet is truly remarkable: the anterior pair, or hands, had five fingers, of which the first, second and third were armed with immense claws, the first being the shortest, and the third the longest; the fourth and fifth fingers, instead of claws, appear to have been furnished with small hoofs: the hind toes were only four, the interior pair having claws, the exterior pair hoofs.

In the zoological summary, the natural affinities of the sloths are briefly detailed, and their relation to the other tribes of Cuvier's Edentata pointed out; and a structural peculiarity of the teeth is used as an argument against their approximation to the monkeys: but when we find the microscopic structure of the teeth of fishes repeated in mammals, as Professor Owen admits to be the case, we surely must pause before we regard these characters as available to the important subject of natural classification. The following paragraph is sufficient to induce some hesitation in adopting the dental hypothesis.

"In the Orycterope we find, strangely repeated, a microscopic structure characteristic of the teeth of the ray and the saw-fish, very different from any modification in the teeth of other Edentata or of other Mammalia. The intimate structure of the teeth of the Megatherioids and Sloths is quite as peculiar to them among Mammalia, but this modification has not been observed in any other class of vertebrate animals." -p. 165.

We have only to subjoin Professor Owen's conspectus of the fossil sloths, and to recommend his admirable work to the attention of every comparative anatomist. It is one, from the perusal of which no one can rise uninstructed: the language is careful, terse, and never redundant; the knowledge displayed accurate and profound; and the reasoning fair, forcible, and almost irresistible.

We cannot conclude our notice of this work, without speaking in praise of the numerous and beautiful lithographic plates drawn by G. Scharf. They represent bones more faithfully than any we have previously seen.

K.

Anecdote of a Hare. I used frequently to walk, during the winter months, with my gun, on the sea-wall and the saltings beyond it, in pursuit of wild fowl, of which several species were frequently to be found. These saltings, which produce, during the summer, a little coarse herbage for sheep, afford also a very favourite resort for hares

to sit.

At spring tides they are completely covered with water: the hares remain on their forms till the tide flows up to them, and are then frequently obliged to swim off. On one occasion, as I was walking on the wall I saw a hare rise from its form, but instantly squat down again on perceiving me. I staid to see whether its fear of me would overcome its evident desire to escape the coming flood. As the tide rose around it, it gradually raised itself up so as barely to leave its head visible above water, with its ears kept closely on its neck: and this it continued to do till a considerable portion

of its body was immersed. My attention was then called off to a number of wild ducks flying towards me, and I retreated behind the wall, in hopes of getting a shot at them, which gave the hare an opportunity of escaping, and when I again looked over, she had just landed, and was bending her course over the adjoining marsh.-Johr Atkinson; Layer Marney, near Kelvedon, Essex, October 21, 1843.

A Fauna of Moray. By the REV. G. GORDON.

THE following lists are transmitted to 'The Zoologist,' in order to give its readers some idea of the Fauna of Moray, a province of Scotland from which there has as yet been no communication to its interesting pages.

The Province of Moray lies on the north side of the Grampian range, is "drained on the east by the Spey and its tributaries, on the west by the Beauly, is bounded on the north by the Moray Frith, and on the south by a line running from Loch Spey to Loch Monar, the course of which is regulated by the water-shears between the east and west coasts."

This district has not been so minutely examined by the zoologist as it deserves. Combining on its varied surface almost every degree of temperature, cultivation, and level that are to be found in Scotland, its alpine range and fertile plains, its inland lakes and its waters of the German ocean, its hill and dale, its primeval forests and modern plantations, its shady bowers and muirland wastes, must be the habitats of many a species, of the minuter tribes, that has not yet been detected by the prying eye of the naturalist. And it is hoped that observers and collectors, whether resident or visiting, will communicate to this journal such additions to the following lists as have or may come under their notice. The admirable plan upon which 'The Zoologist' is conducted, affords every facility for such a record, and the Elgin Museum, lately opened, a no less suitable receptacle for the objects themselves. In former times, when there was no such opportunity of recording the discovery or of preserving the specimen itself, many a zoological rarity has doubtless been found within this province, when, if it attracted any attention at all, it was turned over and over by the hands of the curious, then left to dissolve into its constituent elements on the spot. At times an effort was made, if small in itself and vivid in its colours, to submit it to the inspection perhaps of some neighbouring surgeon or some one who had perchance been beyond the Tweed, or travelled in foreign climes. most conspicuous gable of the homestead, or the less elevated kiln

But, nailed to the