To speak of the megatherium alone, its remains have been found in all parts of the pampas, from the river Carcaraña, in the province of Santa Fé, to the south of the Salado, a distance of nearly 300 miles in a direct line, and in all the intermediate country. Such remains are much more common than is supposed, and I am satisfied might frequently be met with if searched for during the dry season, or after long droughts, either in the banks of the rivers, or in the beds of some of the numerous lakes which are then dried up. All the remains I sent home were so discovered, and so were those sent to Madrid by the Marquis of Loreto, which were found in the bed of the river Luxan, a short distance to the north of the city of Buenos Ayres. The great skeleton I obtained was discovered in the river Salado, to the south of Buenos Ayres, after a drought of unusually long continuance, by a peon in the service of the Sosa family, who, attempting to cross the river at an unfrequented spot, was struck by the appearance of a large mass of something standing above the surface of the water, and which, supposing at first to be some part of the trunk of a tree, he determined to get out if possible: in this he was assisted by some of his brother peons, who, throwing their lassoes over it, succeeded in dragging it out, fortunately without injury, for it proved to be nearly the entire pelvis of the megatherium: with it were also brought up several of the other bones, and amongst them some of the vertebræ. To the peons the pelvis luckily appeared to be useless: turn it which way they would, they all agreed that it did not make half so comfortable a seat as either a bullock's or a horse's head; but the vertebræ did not so easily escape, and in a place where not a stone is to be seen, were eagerly seized upon as excellent substitutes to boil their camp-kettles upon. The smaller ones being best suited to the purpose were the first to disappear, which may account for the deficiency of all the cervical vertebræ as well as of many of the smaller bones of the feet and other parts. After a time it was suggested that the pelvis and some of the largest bones should be sent as curiosities to the owner of the estancia on which they were found, Don Hilario Sosa, at whose house in Buenos Ayres I first saw them. He was good enough, seeing my great anxiety to obtain possession of them, after exhibiting them to his friends, to place them at my disposal, and to allow me to send people to his estancia to search for the remainder of the skeleton: by their exertions many other portions of it were saved; and but for the destruction of some by the country-people, as described, and of others which, having been taken out in the first instance, had remained exposed for some months to the sun, and had become so brittle in consequence as not to bear removal, the skeleton would have been tolerably perfect. As it is, it was very fortunate that amongst the parts preserved were some of those which are wanting in the skeleton at Madrid, especially the bones of the tail, which singularly corroborate the anticipations of Cuvier, whose description of this remarkable monster was drawn from a representation of that specimen, the only one known to exist till mine reached Europe.