THE SLOTH.
Miserable Aspect of the Sloth--His Beautiful Organisation for his
Peculiar Mode of Life--His Rapid Movements in the Trees--His Means
of Defence--His Tenacity of Life--Fable about the Sloth refuted--
The Ai--The Unau--The Mylodon Robustus.
‘The piteous aspect, the sorrowful gestures, the lamentable cry of
the Sloth, all combine to excite commiseration. While other animals
assemble in herds, or roam in pairs through the boundless forest, the
sloth leads a lonely life in those immeasurable solitudes, where the
slowness of his movements exposes him to every attack. Harmless and
frugal, like a pious anchorite, a few coarse leaves are all he asks
for his support. On comparing him with other animals, you would say
that his deformed organisation was a strange mixture of deficiency and
superabundance. He has no cutting teeth, and though possessed of four
stomachs, he still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals.
His feet are without soles, nor can he move his toes separately. His
hair is coarse and wiry, and its dull colour reminds one of grass
withered by the blasts of surly winter. His legs appear deformed by
the manner in which they are attached to the body, and his claws seem
disproportionably long. Surely a creature so wretched and ill-formed
stands last on the list of all the four-footed animals, and may justly
accuse Nature of step-motherly neglect!’
[Illustration: THE SLOTH.]
When seeing a captured sloth painfully creeping along on even ground,
sighing and moaning, and scarcely advancing a few steps after hours
of awkward toil, the observer might well be disposed to acquiesce in
the foregoing remarks, and to fancy he had discovered a flaw among the
general beauty of the Creator’s works; but let him view the animal in
the situation for which it was ordained, and he will soon retract his
hasty judgment, and discover it to be no less perfect in its kind, and
no less admirably fitted for its sphere of existence, than the most
highly organised of the mammalian tribes.
For the sloth, in his wild state, spends his whole life in the trees,
and never once touches the earth but through force or by accident.
Like the monkey, he has been formed for an exclusively sylvan life,
high above the ground, in the green canopy of the woods; but while the
nimble simiæ constantly live _upon_ the branches, the sloth is doomed
to spend his whole life _under_ them. He moves, he rests, he sleeps
suspended from the boughs of trees, a wonderfully strange way of life,
for which no other four-footed animal of the Old or the New World has
been destined.
And now examine his organisation with reference to this peculiar mode
of existence, and all his seeming deficiencies and deformities will
appear most admirably adapted to his wants, for these strong, muscular,
preposterously long fore-feet, while the hinder extremities are
comparatively short and weak, these slender toes armed with enormous
claws, are evidently as well suited for clasping the rugged branch
as the enormous hind-legs of the kangaroo for bounding over the arid
plain. Indeed, in every case, we shall find the fundamental type or
idea of the four extremities belonging to the vertebrated animals most
admirably modified according to their wants: here shortened, there
prolonged; here armed with claws, there terminating in a hoof; here
coalescing to a tail, there assuming the shape of a fin; here clothed
with feathers to cleave the air, there raised to the perfection of
the human hand, the wonderful instrument of a still more wonderful
intelligence; and who, seeing all this, can possibly believe that the
world is ruled by chance, and not by an all-pervading and almighty
power?
Thus the sloth, so helpless when removed from his native haunts, is far
from exhibiting the same torpidity in his movements when seen in the
place for which Nature fitted him.
‘One day, as we were crossing the Essequibo,’ says Mr. Waterton, ‘I
saw a large sloth on the ground upon the bank; how he had got there
nobody could tell; the Indian said he had never surprised a sloth in
such a situation before: he would hardly have come there to drink, for
both above and below the place the branches of the trees touched the
water, and afforded him an easy and safe access to it. Be this as it
may, though the trees were not above twenty yards from him, he could
not make his way through the sand time enough to escape before we
landed. As soon as we came up to him, he threw himself upon his back,
and defended himself in gallant style with his fore-legs. “Come, poor
fellow!” said I to him, “if thou hast got into a hobble to-day, thou
shalt not suffer for it; I’ll take no advantage of thee in misfortune;
the forest is large enough both for thee and me to rove in. Go thy ways
up above, and enjoy thyself in these endless wilds; it is more than
probable thou wilt never have another interview with man. So fare thee
well.” On saying this I took up a long stick which was lying there,
held it for him to hook on, and then conveyed him to a high and stately
mora. He ascended with wonderful rapidity, and in about a minute he was
almost at the top of the tree. He now went off in a side direction, and
caught hold of the branch of a neighbouring tree; he then proceeded
towards the heart of the forest. I stood looking on, lost in amazement
at his singular mode of progress. I followed him with my eye till the
intervening branches closed in betwixt us, and then lost sight for ever
of the sloth. I was going to add that I never saw a sloth take to his
heels in such earnest, but the expression will not do, for the sloth
has no heels.’
The Indians, to whom no one will deny the credit of being acute
observers of animal life, say that the sloth wanders principally when
the wind blows. In calm weather he remains still, probably not liking
to cling to the brittle extremity of the branches, lest they should
break under his weight in passing from one tree to another; but as soon
as the breeze rises, the branches of the neighbouring trees become
interwoven, and then he seizes hold of them and pursues his journey in
safety. There is seldom an entire day of calm in the forests of Guiana.
The trade-wind generally sets in about ten o’clock in the morning,
and since the sloth, as we have just seen, is able to travel at a
good-round pace when he has branches to cling to, there is nothing to
prevent him making a considerable way before the sun sinks, and the
wind goes down.
During night, and while reposing in the daytime, the sloth constantly
remains suspended by his feet, for his anatomy is such that he can
feel comfortable in no other position. In this manner he will rest for
hours together, expressing his satisfaction by a kind of purring, and
from time to time his dismal voice may be heard resounding through the
forest, and awakening at a distance a similar melancholy cry.
The colour of the sloth’s hair so strongly resembles the hue of
the moss which grows on the trees, that the European finds it very
difficult to make him out when he is at rest, and even the falcon-eyed
Indian, accustomed from his earliest infancy to note the slightest
signs of forest life, is hardly able to distinguish him from the
branches to which he clings. This no doubt serves him as a protection
against the attacks of many enemies; but, far from being helpless, his
powerful claws and the peculiarly enduring strength of his long arms,
make very efficient weapons of defence against the large tree snakes
that may be tempted to make a meal of him.
The sloth possesses a remarkable tenacity of life, and withstands the
dreadful effects of the wourali poison of the Macushi Indians longer
than any other animal. Schomburgk slightly scratched a sloth in the
upper lip, and rubbed a minimum of the venom in the wound, which did
not even emit a drop of blood; he then carried the animal to a tree,
which it began to climb, but after having reached a height of about
twelve feet, it suddenly stopped, and swinging its head about from side
to side, as if uncertain which way to go, tried to continue its ascent,
which, however, it was unable to accomplish. First it let go one of its
fore-feet, then the other, and remained attached with its hind-legs
to the tree until, these also losing their power, it fell to the
ground, where, without any of the convulsive motions or the oppressive
breathing which generally mark the effect of the wourali, it expired in
the thirteenth minute after the poison had been administered.
The sloths attain a length of about two feet and a half, and form two
genera--the Unaus, with two-toed fore-feet and three-toed hinder
extremities, and the Aïs, with three toes on each foot. Their way of
living is the same, and their range is limited to the forests of Guiana
and the Brazils. They bring forth and suckle their young like ordinary
quadrupeds, and the young sloth, from the moment of its birth, adheres
to the body of its parent till it acquires sufficient size and strength
to shift for itself.
[Illustration: INDIAN PANGOLIN.]