The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth cervical vertebræ have moderately developed and pointed spinous processes: their transverse processes are broad, and extend obliquely backwards, and slightly overlap each other. On the under part of the transverse process of the sixth cervical vertebra there is the fractured base of what I conjecture to have been an expanded aliform plate, analogous to that observable in the corresponding vertebra of the Orycterope. The seventh cervical vertebra has part of the articular depression for the head of the first rib upon each side of its body: the transverse process is feebly developed, but the spine is double the height and size of those of the preceding vertebræ. The spinous process of the first dorsal vertebra in like manner rises to twice the height of the preceding spine of the seventh cervical, and preserves an equal antero-posterior diameter from its base to its summit, which is thick and slightly bent backwards: four or five succeeding dorsal vertebræ give evidence of having been surmounted by spines of equal height and strength. The transverse processes of these dorsal vertebræ present bold concavities on their inferior part for the reception of the tubercles of the ribs, and they gradually ascend upon the base of the spines as the vertebræ are placed further back, so as to increase the expansiveness of the chest. The state of the fossil did not afford further information as to the condition of this part of the vertebral column, but the parts which have been preserved are precisely those from which the most interesting inferences as to the affinities and habits of the extinct quadruped can be deduced. Whether the Megatherium be most nearly allied to the tribes of the Sloth or Armadillo has been a question under recent discussion, and, as a corollary of this problem, whether its habits were those of a scansorial or of a fossorial quadruped. For, strange as it may appear at first sight, there have not been wanting arguments, and those urged by an anatomist to whom we owe much novel and interesting information respecting the extinct Edentata, in support of the belief that the Megatherium, gigantic and ponderous as must have been its frame, actually climbed trees like a Sloth, and had claws and feet organised for prehensile actions, and not in accordance with that type by which they are usually adapted for digging up the soil.[47]