DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF EXTINCT HOKSE, 

 EQUUS LAMBEI, FEOM THE PLEISTOCENE OF YUKON 

 TERKITORY. 



By Oliver P. Hat, 



Associate of the Carnegie Institution of Washinfjton. 



The writer has the privilege of describing what appears to be a 

 new species of fossil horse from the Klondike region, Yukon Ter- 

 ritory. The fine skull which forms the type of this species was 

 found on April 10, 1903, by Mr. John M. Morrison, now of Ana- 

 cortes, Washington, while mining for gold on Gold Run Creek. 

 This is about 30 miles southeast of Dawson. He unearthed the skull 

 himself on claim No. 34, at a depth of 32 feet below the surface. 

 Mr. Morrison states that starting from the surface there was from 

 18 to 20 feet of muck; below this about 12 feet of fine gravel; and 

 beneath this from 4 to 6 feet of coarse gravel, which carries gold. 

 Immediately below this coarse gravel is the bedrock, and on this 

 lay the skull. Mr. Morrison writes that in the eye sockets was 

 " pay dirt " from which he panned gold. The deposit in which the 

 skull was buried was frozen and may have been in this condition 

 for thousands of j^ears. To this new species is given the name 

 Equus J'UTrhbei, in honor of Mr. Lawrence M. Lambe, vertebrate 

 palaeontologist of the Geological Survey of Canada. 



TT/pe-speewien.—Cat. No. 8226 U.S.N.M. 



Type-locality. — Gold Run Creek, Klondike region, Yukon Terri- 

 tory. 



Type-forTnation. — Pleistocene. 



Diagnosis. — Belongs among the smaller and broad-skulled horses. 

 Teeth unusually broad ; their enamel little plicated ; the protocones 

 unusually long. 



The skull is practically complete (pis. 50-58). AAHiat is unusual 

 is that the skull and the lower jaw were together. The left third 

 upper incisor and the left first lower incisor have been lost since 

 exhumation. The extreme tips of the nasals are broken off. most 

 of the vomer and the turbinal bones are gone, and a little bone here 

 and there is missing. The skull is of the color of cream. xVlmost 

 without other exception, bones from Alaska and Yukon are stained 

 brown. The skull was that of a mare. Its age is believed to have 

 been 12 years or more. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 53- No. 2212. 



435 



