THE MAMMALS OF NEW JERSEY. 55 
leisure. This process is known as chewing the cud, and the 
species that have this habit are called Ruminants. 
All the Ruminants, and practically all the Ungulates, are 
herbivorous and have large flat-topped molar teeth, but with the 
exception of the Pig tribe, the canines are rudimentary or lack- 
ing. Many of the Ruminants have horns, sometimes present in 
both sexes, sometimes only in the males. These are hollow and 
permanent in the Cattle (Bovide), and solid, branched and shed 
annually in the Deer (Cervide). At the present time there is 
only one native species of Ungulate animal in New Jersey, 
namely the Virginia Deer. ‘There is, however, some evidence 
that both the elk and buffalo at one time occurred in the State, 
as Dr. C. C. Abbott reported to Mr. Rhoads that bones of both 
species were found in aboriginal refuse heaps near ‘Trenton, and 
are now in the Peabody Museum of Archzology, at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. Some of the earliest historical accounts of this 
section also refer casually to buffalo and elk being found here 
at the time the county was settled, but such evidence is not very 
reliable. 
In the northwestern corner of the State it is probable that elk 
occurred casually at least within a century, since “a hunter near 
Delaware Gap, N. J., declared that his grandfather, who killed 
the last elk in Pike county, Pennsylvania, stated that sometimes 
the hounds would drive both elk and deer across the Delaware 
river into the Kittatinny Mountain” (Rhoads, Proc. Acad. Nat. 
Bie, LLOG7, p.. 25 )'. 
Family CERVIDZ. 
DEER AND THEIR ALLIES. 
To this family belong the solid horned Ungulates represented 
in North America by the deer, elk, moose and caribou. As ex- 
plained above, the elk is now extinct in the State; while the 
moose and caribou never occurred so far south. 
