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Show 1899.] NEOMYLODON LISTAI EROM PATAGONIA. 145 by Dr. Otto JNTordenskjbld, and others by officers of the Chilian navy, who later on had visited the spot. The inhabitants of the locality looked upon it as an interesting curiosity, some of them believing that it was the hide of a cow incrusted with pebbles, and others asserting that it was the skin of a large Seal belonging to a hitherto unknown species. In Consuelo Cove, I embarked on board a small Argentine transport, which had been placed at m y disposal to carry out the study of the western coast as far as Port Montt, in latitude 42°. At this latter place I left the steamer, Avhich then proceeded to make a series of surveys. These lasted until her return to La Plata, at the latter end of July 1898, Avhen she brought back to me the fragment of skin in question. This is an accurate and true version of the discovery of this skin, Avhich gave rise to the publication of Senor Ameghino's small pamphletl, in which he gave an account of the discovery of a living representative of the " Gravigrades" of Argentina, distinguishing it by the name of " Neomylodon listed." I have an idea that Senor Ameghino never saw the skin itself, but only some of the small incrusted bones, of which he had obtained possession. The vague form in which he draws up his account compels me to believe this suspicion to be true. M y opinion is that this skin belongs to a genuine Pampean Mylodon, preserved under peculiar circumstances resembling those to which we owe the skin and feathers of the Moa. I have abways maintained that the Pampean Edentates, now extinct, disappeared only in the epoch which is called the historical epoch of our America. In the province of Buenos Aires, buried chiefly in the humus, I have found remains of Panochthus, and others of the same Mylodon from the sea-shore, all of which present the same characteristic marks of preservation as the remains of human beings discovered in the same spot. In this identical layer of the sea-shore, close to the bones I have also found stones polished by the hand of man, and flints cut like those found in the Pampean formation. In 1884, in a cavern near to the Eio de los Patos, in the Cordillera, I discovered some paintings in red ochre, one of which, in m y opinion, resembles the Glyptodon on account of the shape of the carapace. Ancient chroniclers inform us that the indigenous inhabitants recorded the existence of a strange, ugly, huge hairy animal which had its abode in the Cordillera to the south of latitude 37°. The Tehuelches and the Gennakens have mentioned similar animals to me, of whose existence their ancestors had transmitted the remembrance; and in the neighbourhood of the Eio Negro, the aged cacique Sinchel, in 1875, pointed out to m e a cave, the supposed lair of one of these monsters, called " Ellengassen " ; but I must add 1 F. Ameghino, "Premiere Notice sur le Neomylodon listai, un Bepresentant vivant des anciens Edentes Gravigrades fo3siles de P Argentina" (La Plata, August 1898); translated under the title " A n Existing Ground-Sloth in Patagonia," in ' Natural Science,' vol. xiii. (1898), pp. 324-326.' ' PROC. ZOOL. SOC-1S99. No. X. 10 |