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Plate IV. p. 38

MEGATHERIUM GIGANTIC ELK

Here is a picture of him; and you may judge how well he was entitled to his name, when I tell you that some pairs of his horns have been found, which measured nearly twelve feet across from tip to tip. He must have been considerably larger than the Wapiti Deer in the Zoological Gardens, and of quite a different form.

It is not known when these creatures became extinct; but it is probable that it may have been since Britain has been inhabited by man.

THE MEGATHERIUM.

The bones of this great beast were first found at Buenos Ayres in South America, and a skeleton nearly complete was sent home from thence by the Governor to the Royal Cabinet of Madrid, in 1789. They were found in loose soil, and must apparently have belonged to nearly the same age as the Fossil Elephant and Irish Elk.

The head must have been very much like that of the sloth, but it seems to have possessed the addition of a small trunk like the Palæotherium I told you of just now. The structure of its legs (and in particular its very strong short thigh-bone, which is much stouter than that of any animal living,) shows that it must have moved very slowly.