SLOTH.

THE sloths are creatures of very extraordinary appearance, as well as organization. They live altogether in trees, and are solely adapted for such a life. Buffon, the French naturalist, spoke of these animals as if they must necessarily pass a most melancholy existence, but his ideas were altogether fanciful, and beyond all doubt totally erroneous. We may feel sure that the all-merciful and all-wise providence of God has allotted to it a share of happiness commensurate with that which He has apportioned to all His other creatures.

Professor Owen observes of the sloths, that they bear some degree of resemblance, in their internal configuration, to the lizards. Professor Buckland, in an interesting paper on these animals, in the "Linnæan Transactions," remarks that Mr. Burchell, the celebrated traveller, noticed that "his captive sloths assumed during sleep a position of perfect ease and safety on the fork of a tree; their arms embracing the trunk, their backs resting on the angle of a branch, and their heads reclining on their own bosoms. The animal is thus rolled up nearly in the form of a ball; the entire vertebral column, including the neck, assumes a nearly circular curve, and not only is the weight of the whole body maintained in an attitude of ease and safety, but the head is supported between the arms and chest, and the face lies buried in the long wool which covers those parts, and is thus protected during sleep from the myriads of insects which would otherwise attack it." "Unfitted then for the ground, along which he can

only drag himself by applying the claws of the fore feet to any rough projection within reach, the sloth is eminently qualified for the branches of the forest, and that rather for their upper than their under surface; clinging to them, he rests and travels suspended, yet in perfect security; here his awkwardness disappears, and he traverses the branches, or passes from tree to tree in the dense forest with considerable celerity, either in quest of food, or in order to escape his enemies."