496 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



Characters. — A stoutly built dog, the size of a small terrier, witii 

 erect ears, short heavy muzzle, high forehead, short body and limbs, 

 well-developed tail. 



The color seems to have been black and white; sometimes more 

 uniformly black, or yellowish with dark blotches. 



The skeleton is stoutly proportioned, the limb-bones short and 

 thick, the humerus with a very small or no olecranal perforation. 

 The sagittal crest is chiefly developed at the occiput. Correlated 

 with the slight reduction of the maxillary bones, and the widening 

 of the palate, is the fact that the last molar is placed just in advance 

 of a transverse line through the posterior boundary of the palate. 



Distrihution. — Skeletal remains of this peculiar small dog ha\e 

 been found in ^'irginia in a superficial cave-deposit, as well as in the 

 shell-mounds of San Nicolas Island on the coast of southern California. 

 A well-preserved dried or mummified example was lately discovered 

 by Mr. S. J. Guernsey in a l)urial antedating the Cliff Dwellers, in 

 the Marsh Pass region of Arizona; and Reiss and Stiibel have dis- 

 covered its mummified remains in the prehistoric necropolis of 

 Ancon, Peru (see Nehring, 1884b). In the M. C. Z. is a humerus 

 lacking the epiphyses, of a young specimen from Pecos, New Mexico, 

 obtained by Dr. A. V. Kidder. These localities may be taken as 

 limiting the known extent of its distribution. 



Notes. — In 1885, Dr. J. A. Allen described as a new genus and 

 species Pachycyon rohustus, an extinct type of dog from Ely Cave, 

 Lee County, Virginia, basing his account upon a pelvis, a femur, a 

 tibia, a scapula, and a humerus of which he publishes excellent illustra- 

 tions. These bones were obtained in the course of excavating the 

 superficial layer of earth on the cave-floor, and though it is not certain 

 exactly at what point they were found, no excavations deeper than a 

 foot were made. Remains of Indian occupation were numerous, and 

 other bones were obtained in the cave. There is nothing to indicate 

 great age in the type-specimens fM. C. Z. 7,091); indeed the bones 

 are quite fresh in appearance, only slightly discolored with earth. 

 They are chiefly notable for their small size and rather heavy ungrace- 

 ful proportions, while the humerus is particularly marked on account 

 of its lacking the usual perforation over the middle of the epicondyle. 

 This perforation is almost always present in Eurasian dogs, as well as 

 in coyotes and wolves. No further light has since been shed on the 

 nature of this animal nor have any parts of its skull been found. 



Among the remarkable discoveries made by Mr. S. J. Guernsey in 

 the course of archaeological exploration in the Marsh Pass region of 



