Walthamstow.
_The Megatherium in the British Museum_ (Vol. vii., p. 590.).--It is much
to be regretted that A FOREIGN SURGEON should not have examined the
contents of the room which contains the cast of the skeleton of this animal
with a little more attention, before he penned the above article. Had he
done so, he would have found many of the original bones, from casts of
which the restored skeleton has been constructed, in Wall Cases 9 and 10,
and would not have fallen into the error of supposing that it is a
_fac-simile_ of the original skeleton at Madrid. _That_ specimen was
exhumed near Buenos Ayres in 1789; whilst our restoration {20} has been
made from bones of another individual, many of which are, as I have stated,
to be found in the British Museum itself, and others in that of the Royal
College of Surgeons. I are not about to defend the propriety of putting the
trunk of a palm-tree into the claws of the Megatherium, though I do not
suppose that the restorer ever expected, when he did so, that any one would
entertain the idea that this gigantic beast was in the habit of climbing
trees; but I would fain ask your correspondent on what grounds he makes the
dogmatic assertion that "Palms there were none, at that period of telluric
formation." I will simply remind him of the vast numbers of fossil fruits,
and other remains of palms, in the London clay of the Isle of Sheppey.