OCR Text |
Show 180 BANDA ORIENTAL. Nov. 183.3. kill and take the skin off fifty in the same tim~. This would have been a prodigious task, for it is considered a good day's work to skin and stake the hides of fifteen or sixteen animals. NOVEMBER 26TH.-I s~t out on my return in a direct line for Monte Video. Having heard of some giant's bones at a neighbouring farm-house on the Sarandis, a s~all stream entering the Rio Negro, I rode there accompamed by my host, and purchased for the value of eighteen pe~ce, the head of an animal equalling in size that of the h~ppopot~mu~ Mr. Owen in a paper read before the Geological Society, has called this very extraordinary animal, Toxodon, from the curvature of its teeth. The following notice is taken from the proceedings of that society : Mr. Owen says, judging from the portion of the skeleton preserved, the Toxodon, as far as dental characters have weight, must be referred to the rodent order. But from that order it deviates in the relative position of its supernumerary incisors, in the number and direction of the curvature of its molars, and in some other respects. It again deviates, in several parts of its structure which Mr. Owen enumerated, both from the Rodentia, and the existing Pachydermata, and it manifests an affinity to the Dinotherium and the Cetaceous order. Mr. Owen, however, observed, that" the development of the nasal cavity and the presence of frontal sinuses, renders it extremely improbable that the habits of the Toxodon were so exclusively aquatic as would result from the total absence of hinder extremities ; and concludes, therefore, that it was a quadruped, and not a Cetacean ; and that it manifested an additional step in the gradation of mammiferous forms leading from the Rodentia, through the Pachydermata to the Cetacea; a gradation of which the water-hog of South America (Ilydrocluerus capybam) already indicates' the commencement amongst existing Rodentia, of which order it is interesting to observe this species is the largest, while at • Read, April 19th, 1837. A detailed account will appear in the first part of the zoologv of the voyage of the Beagle. Nov. 1833. TOXODON, 181 the same time it is peculiar to the continent in which the remains of the gigantic Toxodon were discovered." The people at the farm-house told me that the remains were exposed, by a flood having washed down part of a bank of earth. When found, the head was quite perfect ; but the boys knocked the teeth out with stones, and then set up the head as a mark to throw at. By a most fortunate chance, I found a perfect tooth, which exactly fits one of the sockets in this skull, embedded by itself on the banks of the Rio Tercero, at the distance of about 180 miles from this place. Near the Toxodon I found the fragments of the head of an animal, rather larger than the horse, which has some points of resemblance with the Toxodon, and others perhaps with the Edentata. The head of this animal, as well as that of the Toxodon, and especially the former, appear so fresh, that it is difficult to believe they have lain buried for ages under ground. The bone contains so much animal matter, that when heated in the flame of a spirit-lamp, it not only exhales a very strong animal odour, but likewise burns with a slight flame.* At the distance of a few leagues I visited a place where the remains of another great animal, associated with large pieces of armadillo-like covering, had been found. Similar pieces were likewise lying in the bed of the stream, close to the spot where the skeleton of the Toxodon had been exposed. These portions are dissimilar from those mentioned at Bahia Blanca. It is a most interesting fact thus to discover, that more than one gigantic animal in former ages was protected by a coat of mail, t very similar to the kind now * I must express my obligation to Mr. Keane, at whose house I was staying on the Berquelo, and to Mr. Lumb at Buenos Ayres, for without their assistance, these valuable remains would never have reached England. t I may here just mention, that I saw in the possession of a clergyman near Monte Video, the terminal portion of a tail, which precisely resembled, but on a gigantic scale, that of the common armadillo. The fragment was 17 inches long, II! in circumference at the upper end, and 8~ at the e.1·tt·e?ne point. As we do not know what proportion the tail |