some Armadillos, the cervical vertebrae are at least partly fused. The atlas is free, but the rest, or at any rate five of them, are united. The last cervical is sometimes fused with the succeeding dorsals; the latter are twelve in number, and are fused together so far as concerns their centra and neural processes. The succeeding region of the vertebral column includes seven to nine lumbars, which are fused with the eight sacrals; in this region the neural processes are high, and there is thus produced a strong and lofty ridge along the back, which forms a powerful support for the carapace. The fore-limbs are shorter than the hind-limbs, which latter are attached to an unusually massive pelvis. 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.
In the allied genus Panochthus the tail is rather longer, and the bony rings which surround it, instead of being all movable as in Glyptodon, are at first so, but later, i.e. towards the end of the tail, become welded into a single and massive piece. Both feet are here four-toed, while in Glyptodon the hind-feet are five-toed and the fore-feet four-toed.
Daedicurus shows a further specialisation, in that the feet have three and four digits respectively. The orbit too shows a specialisation in being separated from the temporal fossa. The descending process of the zygomatic arch is not so extraordinarily exaggerated as it is in Glyptodon. It has the same terminal tube of osseous scutes upon the tail. This creature seems to have reached a length of about twelve feet.
Propalaeohoplophorus is, unlike the great Armadillos that we have hitherto dealt with, a small animal, not exceeding 2 feet or so in length of carapace. A small alveolus on each side of the premaxillae seems to suggest the former presence of an incisor tooth; and it seems that the animal possesses both true molars and premolars; for the first four of the eight teeth are much
