Glyptodon

“ The claws of the limbs are blunt and almost hoof-like.
The heavy carapace consists of sculptured, five or six-sided plates, which have no particular arrangement in the middle, but towards the margins show indications of an arrangement in transverse rows. The moderately long tail is also encircled by bony skin-plates which are thorny above, or at least provided each with a blunt upstanding process. It appears that outside this bony system of scutes were horny epidermic scales, corresponding exactly with the tesserae which they cover. There are apparently a good many species of Glyptodon. ”

“ There is something picturesque in the idea of a man in a past geological period finding on the Pampas the body of a glyptodon, scooping out its flesh, setting up its carapace on the ground like a monstrous dish-cover, and digging himself a burrow to live in underneath this animal roof ”

“ Fig. 51.—Extinct Gigantic Armadillo, Glyptodon clavipes, from Pleistocene deposits, Buenos Ayres. (The tail sheath here represented probably belongs to another genus, Hoplophorus.)
Armadillos belong, with sloths and ant-eaters, to the same family of so-called toothless animals (edentata) with no front teeth, though one or two forms really are toothless. Those of the present day have their bony armour divided up into a series of bands, so that they can roll themselves up, more or less, into balls. ”

“ In Glyptodon asper (Plate XIX.) , the scutes of the carapace had a beautiful rosette-like sculpture, while the sheath of the tail was entirely composed of a series of movable rings, ornamented with large projecting tubercles. The vertebræ of the backbone are almost entirely fused together into a long tube, and also are joined to the under surface of the great shield, to which the ribs are united. The cheek-teeth are sixteen in number, four above and four below on each side. These are channelled with two broad and deep grooves, which divide the surface into three distinct lobes. ”

“ These fossils, found in the Argentine Republic, are objects of special legislation, inasmuch as Congress has by law forbidden their exportation except with the consent of the director of the museum. This consent is given only in those cases where duplicates equally good and interesting are already in the museum. Dr. Burmeister informs me that there are but three specimens of the Glyptodon anything like complete in European museums, and that in the United States he believes there are none. Even those which are in Europe are imperfect in some important features ”

“ The largest known species of these extinct Dasypodidæ is the Glyptodon clavipes, of which the armour and parts of the skeleton have been described by MM. Weiss and D’Alton in the Berlin Transactions for 1827 and 1834: and the generic and specific characters and name, with an account of the dental system, and bones of the extremities, were recorded in the Geological Proceedings for March 1839. It would seem that parts of the same, or a nearly allied gigantic species were described in the same year by M. Lund ”

“ The same may be observed, but in a less degree, in the teeth of the Megatherium itself; hence, it is obviously hazardous to found a generic distinction upon a single tooth, unless, as in the case of the Glyptodon, [43] the modification of form happens to be extremely well-marked. The whole series of teeth, or their sockets, at least of one of the jaws, should be known for the purpose of making a satisfactory comparison with the previously established Edentate genera. ”

“ Darwin’s collection are a few pieces which were found by him, associated with remains of Toxodon and Glossotherium near the Rio Negro in Banda Oriental. [65] These fragments, if we may judge from their thickness, must have belonged to an animal at least as 107large as the Glyptodon clavipes; but the pattern differs in the greater equality of size of the component tesseræ. The thickness of the largest fragment is one inch and a half, the tesseræ vary in diameter from one inch to half an inch, and are separated by grooves about two lines in depth, and two in diameter. ”

“ I found here a large piece of tessellated armour, like that of the Glyptodon, and many fragments of bones. The cliffs on the Salado consist of pale-coloured Pampean mud, including and passing into great masses of tosca-rock: here a skeleton of the Megatherium and the bones of other extinct quadrupeds (see the list at the end of this chapter) were found. Large quantities of crystallised gypsum (of which specimens were given me) occur in the cliffs of this river ”

“ In Chlamydophorus the scutes are mainly confined to the posterior region where they form a strong vertically-placed shield which coalesces with the pelvis. The anterior part of the body is mainly covered by horny epidermal plates with very little ossification beneath. In the gigantic extinct Glyptodonts the body is covered with a solid carapace formed by the union of an immense number of plates, and there are no movable rings. The top of the head is defended [420] by a similar plate, the tail is generally encased in an unjointed bony tube, and there is commonly a ventral plastron. ”

“ Buckland, and the splendid remains of its skeleton presented to the Hunterian Museum by Sir Woodbine Parish; but this animal is only one of several species of Edentata, equally interesting, and almost rivalling it in magnitude, which the labours of our own naturalists, Sir W. Parish, Mr. Darwin, and Mr. Pentland, « 799 » and of Dr. Lund and other foreign savants, have brought to light. I can only advert to two other genera, namely, the Glyptodon and Mylodon. ”

“ With these exceptions, I do not know of the teeth of any carnivore with which those of the Glutton under consideration can be confounded.
The following Table shows the relation of the lower jaw of the Glutton from Plas Heaton to those found in the caves of Germany, and to a recent specimen preserved in the British Museum. The Welsh fossil in every dimension is larger than any of the rest, and must have belonged to an animal proportionally more robust than any of the others. ”

“ Gypsophila paniculata is one of the most useful plants of this time of year; its delicate masses of bloom are like clouds of flowery mist settled down upon the flower borders. Shooting up behind and among it is a tall, salmon-coloured Gladiolus, a telling contrast both in form and manner of inflorescence. Nothing in the garden has been more satisfactory and useful than a hedge of the white everlasting Pea. The thick, black roots that go down straight and deep have been undisturbed for some years, and the plants yield a harvest of strong white bloom for cutting that always seems inexhaustible. ”

“ Gladstone, founding himself on Genesis, says—water, air, land-population. If a chronicler of Greece affirmed that the age of Alexander preceded that of Pericles and immediately succeeded that of the Trojan war, Mr. Gladstone would hardly say that this order is "understood to have been so affirmed by historical science that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." Yet natural science "affirms" his "fourfold order" to exactly the same extent—neither more nor less.
Suppose, however, that "fowl" is to be taken to include flying insects. ”

“ The gladiolus opens its first flower in the morning, and the work of going over a bed containing hundreds that have just bloomed for the first time, and marking the finest with tags upon which are inscribed a few characters that mean much to the owner, and almost nothing to anyone else, will give one an undercurrent of joy for the rest of the day. Another special pleasure that comes to the grower of choice seedlings is that of naming one for a friend, and this pleasure has been mine a number of times. ”

“ It is a curious circumstance that so careful a naturalist as Mr. Newport should misstate such an important anatomical fact. The genitalia in the Glomeridæ are placed, not as in the rest of the order, in the anterior portion of the body, but in the posterior, thus agreeing with the Chilopoda. It is very interesting to see a character which, in the higher group is characteristic of an order, thus becoming so degraded in a lower group as to belong only to suborders; and still more so when, as in this case, the same change takes place in the value of one or more other characters. ”

“ Gladstone finds the quite true statement that plants appeared before fishes, it is only by a complete misunderstanding that he can be led to imagine it serves his purpose. As a matter of fact, at the present moment, it is a question whether, on the bare evidence afforded by fossils, the marine creeping thing or the marine plant has the seniority. ”

“ Rare or scarce gladiolus seeds, particularly those resulting from difficult crosses, should not be risked under ordinary garden or field conditions of growth. We naturally wish to bring to maturity every possible plant that the ideal we are breeding for may not be lost, if it should by chance be included in the number. If grown in pots or boxes the first season, with due care every good seed is likely to produce a vigorous bulb that may be planted out next year. ”

“ Gladstone is grave, sober, earnest, proud, passionate, and at times romantic to a rare degree. He rebukes, refutes, contradicts, defies, and has a magnificent capacity for indignation. He will roar you like a lion, his eyes will flash, and his clenched fist will shake as he denounces that which he believes to be error. ”

“ In a few years many of their choice varieties seem to have dwindled away to almost nothing, or to have disappeared entirely, while they have a burdensome surplus of some others. They wonder why this is so, and some become convinced that the gladiolus will in time revert to some original species. Nearly all such cases may be accounted for by considering that some varieties multiply very much faster than others, both by bulblets and the formation of new bulbs. ”

“ The Guillemot swims well and buoyantly; it also dives with remarkable agility, and obtains most of its food whilst doing so. The Guillemots are rarely seen 129 upon the land after the young have quitted their birthplaces; they spend their entire time upon the sea, seeking shelter during rough weather in bays or under the lee of headlands, but not unfrequently great numbers perish in a gale, their dead bodies strewing the coast where the tide has cast them ashore. ”

“ The critical period in the life of the gladiolus is the blooming season, and some support at that time is almost indispensable. It grows so tall and offers so much resistance to the wind that the stalk is liable to be strained or broken, to the [Pg 20] detriment of the bulb, and every effort should be made to keep it upright and prevent its being injured, even a little. ”

“ Hence it follows that natural science does not "affirm" the statement that birds were made on the fifth day, and "everything that creepeth on the ground" on the sixth, on which Mr. Gladstone rests his order; for, as is shown by Leviticus, the "Mosaic writer" includes lizards among his "creeping things."
Perhaps I have given myself superfluous trouble in the preceding argument, for I find that Mr. Gladstone is willing to assume (he does not say to admit) that the statement in the text of Genesis as to reptiles cannot "in all points be sustained" (p. 16) . ”

“ The Black Guillemot, and its allies, are remarkable for the fact that their eggs are two or three in number; in all other members of the Alcidæ the eggs never exceed one. This peculiarity has induced some systematists to restrict the genus Uria to the Black Guillemots alone. The Black Guillemot lays two eggs, much smaller than, and not so pear-shaped as, those of the Common Guillemot, cream, buff, or pale green in ground colour, blotched and spotted with rich dark brown, paler brown, and gray. The young chicks are said not to repair to the sea at so early an age as those of the preceding birds ”

“ They look much brighter and more attractive when thus treated than when left lying in contact with the damp soil, for a considerable time, as this gives them a dull, discolored appearance. If grown for market, those that shine like satin are much more salable, and even for planting it is much more pleasing to have them bright than tarnished. Sometimes, when short of crates, or in a great hurry, we have piled up small bulbs with their accompanying soil in the field and left them to be cared for at a more convenient time. ”

“ Cutting the spikes as soon as the first flowers open is a great advantage, lessening the weight of the tops and diminishing its resistance to the wind, besides relieving the plant of the burden of nourishing the blooms. If the flowers are not wanted, the spikes can be cut as soon as they are high enough to escape the foliage, and this is still better. When the gladiolus is grown as a field crop, there are so many tops together that they support each other to some extent. ”

“ The brilliant light of the early days of our century has become dim and cold in those hearts and minds which have not had the power to grow and expand with their ages. But with that splendid sanity of body as well as mind which belongs to him, Mr. Gladstone is the creature of the ending of the nineteenth as of the beginning of the twentieth century. Like the man of Arctic climes, he stands almost at the same moment in the sunset of one great century and the heralding light of the sunrise of another. ”

“ One of the most interesting branches of gladiolus culture is the growing of seedlings, and a very important part of this is producing the seed. Of course, seed can be bought, but it is more satisfactory to the grower to raise it himself, as far as practicable, and know what it is, besides eliminating an item of expense. Spherical or conical bulbs are more vigorous, and therefore better for this purpose, than flat ones of the same sort. ”