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.
Its teeth show that it lived on vegetables, and the great ungainly fore-feet, armed with tremendous claws, would lead one to suppose that it used to dig in the ground for roots, and tear down the branches of trees.
It appears to have been covered with a thick shell or coating, thicker than the hide of a rhinoceros, and rather resembling the covering of the armadillo. I have seen a piece of this wonderful coat of armour in the Museum at Paris, which was found along with the skeleton in South America.