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A Cranium OF CASTOROIDES FuUND AT GREENFIELD, IND. 
By JosEPH Moere. 
Castoroides has been correctly represented as decidedly the greatest 
rodent, recent or fossil. This Greenfield cranium, with the nasals and 
premaxillary restored, would measure a foot and an inch in length. Com- 
pare this with the heads of beavers and ground hogs, the largest rodents 
with which we are familiar. Even the great capybara of South America 
is quite dwarfed in the comparison. 
The scarcity of Castoeroides remains and the interest which for various 
reasons attaches to them make every considerable fragment of them 
worthy of mention. So far as relates to material for study, Indiana has 
furnished far more than any other State. On this point, and for further 
details, I refer the reader to a detailed report of the Randolph County 
skeleton in the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History for 
October, 1890, and also to the American Geologist, Vol. XII, August, 1893. 
In the latter, mere mention is made of the cranium now under considera- 
tion. At that time it was the property of Dr. M. M. Adams, of Greenfield. 
To said Dr. Adams I am greatly indebted for the transfer of the same 
to the Earlham College museum. 
Little is known of its history save that it was found, years since, by 
some one who was digging or grading in Greenfield or vicinity. 
It is the cranium of a larger representative of the species than the 
Randolph find, as described in the American Geologist and in the Cincin- 
nati Journal. Although the thin pterygoid blades are badly broken away, 
still that characteristic feature of the double posterior nares is clearly 
shown.. This is especially noteworthy as it pertains to no other known 
species, fossil or recent. 
This giant beaver-like rodent occupied our marshes and streams of 
quaternary times in company with the mastodon and mammoth, and prob- 
ably became extinct, largely through the agency of prehistoric man, some- 
what as our modern beaver appears to be going to-day. 
The two plates, with explanations, which accompany this paper, will 
give a better idea of the dimensions and also of a few anatomical details. 
