Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/177

 S L S L O 161 1715. He passed seventeen years of his life at Rome, where he was chosen to execute a statue of St Bruno, one of the best modern works of the class in St Peter's. He was also the sculptor of the tomb of Marquis Capponi in St John of the Florentines. Other works of his are to be seen at the church of St Louis of France and at Santa Maria della Scala. After his return to France, Slodtz, in conjunction with his brothers Sebastian and Paul, produced many decorative works in the churches of Paris, and, though much has been destroyed, his most considerable achievement- the tomb of Languet de Gergy in St Sul- pice exists at the present day. He died at Paris on 26th October 1764. Slodtz had been, like his brothers, a member of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and many particulars of his life are pre- served in a memoir written by Cochin, and also in a letter from the same to the Gazette Litteraire, which was reproduced by Castilhon in the Necrologe of 1766. Slodtz's father (1655-1726) was also a sculptor, born at Antwerp ; he became a pupil of Girardon and worked mostly under him at Versailles and the Tuileries. See C. N. Cochin, Mem. ined., Paris, 1881 ; Barbet cle Jouy, Sculpture moderne du Louvre, Paris, 1856 ; Dussieux, Artistes Franrais a I'fctranger, Paris, 1852. S&ONIM, a district town of Russia, in the government of Grodno, 105 miles south-east of Grodno and 20 from the railway from Moscow to Warsaw, on the high craggy banks of the Schara. It derives its importance from this river, which is navigable and enters the system of the Oginski Canal connecting the Niemen with the Dnieper. Corn, tar, and especially timber are exported annually to a large amount, which in 1882 reached the value of .20,700. The population was 21,110 in 1883. Stonim is a very old town, being mentioned in 1040, when Yaroslaff defeated the Lithuanians in its neighbourhood and com- pelled them to acknowledge his rule. In 1241 the Mongols, under Batyi, pillaged it and burned its wooden fort. Owing to its position between Galician Russia and Lithuania, it often changed hands until it was conquered by the Lithuanians in the 14th century. From 1631 to 1685 it was the seat of the Lithuanian seim and became a flourishing city. In the 18th century, under the hetman Oginski, a canal was dug to connect the Schara with the Dnieper. Oginski embellished the city and founded there a printing-office. Russia annexed the town in 1795. SLOTH. The general characters by which the family Bradypodidse are distinguished from the rest of the order Edentata have been given in the article MAMMALIA (vol. xv. p. 384). The sloths, as the animals of this family are called on account of the habitual sluggishness of their Two-toed sloth (Cholcepus ho/manni). movements, are the most strictly arboreal of all mammals, living entirely among the branches of trees, usually hang- ing under them, with their backs downwards, and clinging to them with the simple hook-like organs to which the terminations of all their limbs are reduced. When they are obliged from any cause to descend to the ground, which they rarely, if ever, do voluntarily, their limbs, owing to their unequal length and the peculiar conformation of the feet which allows the animals to rest only on the outer edge are most inefficient for terrestrial progression, and the sloths crawl along a level surface with considerable difficulty. Though generally slow and inactive, even when in their natural haunts, they can on occasions travel with considerable rapidity along the branches, and, as they do not leap, like most other arboreal creatures, they avail themselves of the swaying of the boughs by the wind to pass from tree to tree. They feed entirely on leaves and young shoots and fruits, which they gather in their mouth, the fore-limbs aiding in dragging boughs within reach, but not being used as hands, as they are by monkeys, squirrels, <fcc. When sleeping they roll themselves up in a ball, and, owing to the dry shaggy character of their hair, are very inconspicuous among the mosses and lichens with which the trees of their native forests abound ; and the concealment thus afforded is heightened in some species by the peculiar greenish tint of the outer covering, very uncommon in mammals. This is not due to the colour of the hair itself, but to the presence upon its surface of an alga, the lodgement of which is facilitated by the fluted or rough surface of the exterior of the hair, and the growth of which is promoted by the dampness of the atmosphere in the gloomy tropical forests, as it soon disappears from the hair of animals kept in captivity in England. Sloths are nocturnal, silent, inoffensive, and solitary animals, and produce usually but one young at birth. They appear to show an almost reptilian tenacity of life, surviving the most severe injuries and large doses of poisons, and ex- hibiting longer persistence of irritability of muscular tissue after death than other mammals. The sloths were all included in the Linnean genus Bradypus, but Illiger very properly separated the species with but two claws on the fore-feet, under the name of Cholceinis, leaving J3radypus for those with three. Genus Bradypus. Three-toed sloths. Teeth usually f on each side ; no tooth projecting greatly beyond the others ; the first in the upper jaw much smaller than any of the others ; the first in the lower jaw broad and compressed ; the grinding surfaces of all much cupped. Vertebrae: C 9, D and L 20 (of which 15 to 17 bear ribs), S 6, C 11. All the known species present the remark- able peculiarity of possessing nine cervical vertebrae, i.e., nine vertebrae in front of the one which bears the first thoracic rib (or first rib connected with the sternum, and corresponding in its general relations with the first rib of other mammals) ; but the ninth, and sometimes the eighth, bears a pair of short movable ribs. The arms or fore-limbs are considerably longer than the hind legs. The bones of the fore-arm are complete, free, and capable of pronation and supination. The hand is long, very narrow, habit- ually curved, and terminates in three pointed curved claws, in close apposition with each other ; they are, in fact, incapable of being divaricated, so that the hand is reduced to the condition of a triple hook, fit only for the function of suspension from the boughs of trees. The foot closely resembles the hand in its general struc- ture and mode of use. The sole is habitually turned inwards and cannot be applied to the ground in walking. The tongue is short and soft, and the stomach large and complex, bearing some resem- blance to that of the ruminating animals. The windpipe or trachea has the remarkable peculiarity among mammals not unfrequent among birds and reptiles of being folded on itself before it reaches the lungs. The mammae are two and pectoral in position. "Ai" is the common name given in books to the three- toed sloths. They were all comprised by Linnaeus under the species Bradypus tridactylus. More recently Dr Gray has described as many as eleven, ranged in two genera, Bradypus and Arctopithecus ; but the distinctions which he assigns both to species and to genera do not bear close examination. Some are covered uniformly with a grey or greyish brown coat ; others have a dark collar of elongated hairs around the shoulders (B. t&rquatiis) ; some have the hair of the face very much shorter than that of the rest of the head and neck ; and others have a remarkable-looking patch of soft short hair on the back between the shoulders, consisting when best marked of a median stripe of glossy black, bordered on each side by bright XXII. 21