kill and take the skin off fifty in the same time. 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.
N o v e m b e r 2 6 t i i .— I set 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 small stream
entering the Rio Negro, I rode there accompanied by my
host, and purchased for the value of eighteen pence, the head
of an animal equalling in size that of the hippopotamus.
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 Binotherinm 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 [liydrochccrus capybara) already indicates' the commencement
amongst existing Rodentia, of which order it is
interesting to observe this species is the largest, while at
* R e a d , A p r il 1 9th, 1887. A d e ta ile d a c c o u n t w ill a p p e a r in th e
first p a r t o f tile zoo lo g y o f t h e voyage o f th e Be agle.
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 hkewise 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 Iiad 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,! very similar to the kind now
* I m u s t e x p re s s m y o b lig a tio n to M r. K e a n e , a t w h o se h o u s e I was
s ta y in g o n th e B e rq u e lo , a n d to M r. L um b a t B u e n o s A y re s , fo r w ith o u t
th e i r a ssistan c e , tlie se v a lu a b le rem a in s w o u ld n e v e r h a v e r e a c h e d
lin g la n d .
! I m ay h e re ju s t m e n tio n , t h a t I saw in th e p o ssessio n o f a c le rg ym a n
n e a r M o n te Vid eo , th e te rm in a l p o r tio n o f a ta il, w h ic h p re c is e ly r e sem
b le d , b u t o n a g ig an tic scale, t h a t o f th e com m o n a rm a d illo . T h e
f r a gm e n t was 17 in ch e s long, H-l in c irc um fe re n c e a t th e u p p e r en d , a n d
8^ a t th e extreme p o in t. As we do n o t k n ow w h a t p ro p o r tio n th e ta il
til
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ft' 571
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