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It mostly happens that Indians and negroes are the people who catch the
sloth and bring it to the white man: hence it may be conjectured that the
erroneous accounts we have hitherto had of the sloth have not been penned
down with the slightest intention to mislead the reader or give him an
exaggerated history, but that these errors have naturally arisen by
examining the sloth in those places where Nature never intended that he
should be exhibited.
However, we are now in his own domain. Man but little frequents these thick
and noble forests, which extend far and wide on every side of us. This,
then, is the proper place to go in quest of the sloth. We will first take a
near view of him. By obtaining a knowledge of his anatomy we shall be
enabled to account for his movements hereafter, when we see him in his
proper haunts. His fore-legs, or, more correctly speaking, his arms, are
apparently much too long, while his hind-legs are very short, and look as
if they could be bent almost to the shape of a corkscrew. Both the fore-
and hind-legs, by their form and by the manner in which they are joined to
the body, are quite incapacitated from acting in a perpendicular direction,
or in supporting it on the earth, as the bodies of other quadrupeds are
supported by their legs.
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