196 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1898. 



NOTES ON THE FOSSIL WALRUS OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 

 BY SAMUEL N. RHOADS. 



In the eleventh volume of the Transactions of the American 

 Philosophical Society, 1 Dr. Joseph Leidy describes and figures two 

 specimens of fossil walrus obtained on the coast of New Jersey, and 

 discusses the relationships of the recent and fossil forms of Atlantic 

 walrus. In his opinion there is no foundation for a distinction be- 

 tween the existing species and the so-called Trichechus virginianus 

 of DeKay, 2 based on a fossil walrus skull from Accomac County, 

 Virginia. 



In the eighth volume of the Journal of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, published twenty years subsequent to his 

 paper in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society above re- 

 ferred to, Dr. Leidy describes a walrus tusk from the phosphate 

 beds of Ashley River, South Carolina. This specimen he compares 

 with the tusks of a large skull in the museum of the Academy from 

 Nova Scotia, and concludes that the characters of the South Caro- 

 lina specimen are not of sufficient value to determine whether it per- 

 tained to a species distinct from the living one. The specimen from 

 Nova Scotia, thus casually referred to by Dr. Leidy, is yet in the 

 museum of the Academy, and is by far the most complete fossilized 

 cranium of an adult animal of which we have any record. 



Before passing to a further consideration of the specimens de- 

 scribed by Leidy, it should be stated that Dr. J. A. Allen, in his Me- 

 moir of the Pinnipeds 3 also records 4 a skeleton of a fossil walrus 

 " with tusks over five inches long " in the quaternary clays of Port- 

 land, Maine. Dr. Allen does not seem to have examined any fossil 

 specimens of walrus, nor does he venture an opinion as to the 

 specific value of the so-called fossil species. From his full quota- 

 tions of Leidy, however, it is evident that Dr. Allen was inclined to 

 coincide with the determinations of so eminent an authority. 



1 New Series, pp. 83-86, pi. 4, and 5. 



2 Nat. Hist. N. York, Zool., I, p. 56, pi. 19, fig. 1, a, b. 

 3 U. S. Geol. Surv., Misc. Pub , XII, 1880. 



4 See also Amer. Nat., Sept., 1878, p. 633. 



