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 (Bovidcs), and solid, branched and shed 

 annually in the Deer (Cervidcu). 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 Archaeology, 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. 

 Sci., 1897, p. 25). 



Family CERVID^. 



De;er and Their Aeues. 



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. 



