MASTODON REMAINS IN NOVA SCOTIA. PIERS. 171 



Honeyman (Giants and Pigmies, 1887, p. 88) states that 

 he found in the Mechanics' Institute museum tusks which 

 were supposed to be parts of the Mastodon tusks, but which he 

 says were tusks of the walrus. It seems almost positive that 

 he was in error about this, and that the original tusk had been 

 lost, or loaned for examination and never returned, prior to 

 his taking over the collections in 1868, and that he had come 

 to the conclusion that one of the walrus tusks which he later 

 found in the museum must have been mistaken for it. 



That a tusk or part of a tusk was actually found on the 

 McRae farm at Lower Middle River, Victoria county, is very 

 strongly supported by Duncan McRae (memorandum of 

 February, 1912) who distinctly remembers that a "large tooth 

 [i. e., tusk] shaped somewhat like a sickle" was found on the 

 McRae farm a short distance from where the thigh-bone was 

 discovered, and I suppose at or about the same time, and that 

 a man whose name he does not know, who had been sent down 

 from Halifax, went there and took it away to Halifax. It was 

 so large that this man, when 'he departed with it, "slung it 

 across his shoulder," but the incident took place so long ago 

 that McRae does not remember the exact length of the relic. 

 This, in my opinion, was without doubt the tusk or "tooth" 

 which was afterwards in the Institute museum, presented by a 

 Mr. Leonard, listed in the beforementioned inventories, seen 

 by Dawsoii prior to 1855, but which was lost before 1868. 

 The sickle-shape shows it was a long "tusk," not an ordinary 

 molar tooth. McRae says he had never heard of anything else 

 resembling a tooth having been found at Lower Middle River, 

 nor any other remains but the thigh-bone. The Mr. Leonard 

 mentioned as having presented the so-called "tooth" to the 

 Institute museum, was very likely Charles E. Leonard who 

 was prothonotary, etc., of Sydney in 1833, or some other mem- 

 ber of that family. 



