[page] 603

P. 164. Mr. C. Darwin has deposited in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, a most interesting series of fossil bones of extinct Mainmalia, discovered by him in South America. I learn from Mr. Owen "that these include two, if not three distinct species of Edentata, intermediate in size, between the Megatherium and the largest living species of Armadillo (Dasypus Gigas, Cuv.), all similarly protected by an armour of bony tubercles, arid making the transition from the Megatherium more directly to the existing Armadillos, than to the Sloths. A still more interesting fossil, is the cranium of a quadruped, which must have rivalled the Hippopotamus in dimensions, but which has the dentition of an animal of the Rodent Order; and it is worthy of remark, that the largest living species of that order, the Capybara, is peculiar to South America. Mr. Darwin has also collected fragments of a small Rodent, closely allied to the Agouti; and the remains of an Ungulate quadruped, of the size of a Camel; and which forms a link between the aberrant group ot Ruinmantia to which the Camels and Llamas belong, and the order Pachydermata.''